James Madison wrote a number of short political essays reflecting his concern for the new government he had helped to create
and for the direction it would take in the future. The sovereign power of the United States resided in its people, he felt,
and only through an enlightened public could the government seek guidance for its tasks. Madison's awareness of the unpredictability
of the public mind is reflected in the following essay, which first appeared in the National Gazette on December 19, 1791, long before the public opinion polls of today had come into existence.

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

As there are cases where the public opinion must be obeyed by the government, so there are cases where, not being fixed, it
may be influenced by the government. This distinction, if kept in view, would prevent or decide many debates on the respect
due from the government to the sentiments of the people.

In proportion as government is influenced by opinion, it must be so by whatever influences opinion. This decides the question
concerning a constitutional Declaration of Rights, which requires an influence on government by becoming a part of public
opinion.

The larger a country, the less easy for its real opinion to be ascertained, and the less difficult to be counterfeited; when
ascertained or presumed, the more respectable it is in the eyes of individuals. This is favorable to the authority of government.
For the same reason, the more extensive a country, the more insignificant is each individual in his own eyes. This may be
unfavorable to liberty.

Whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments, as good roads, domestic commerce, a free press, and particularly
a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people, and representatives going from and returning among every
part of them, is equivalent to a contraction of territorial limits, and is favorable to liberty, where these may be too extensive.

Source: Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Fourth President of the United States: "Public Opinion," vol. 4, 1865.

George W. Bush: Immigration Reform

The United States has long been referred to as a “melting pot” and a “nation of immigrants.” Despite this, immigration has been a contentious
issue in the country's history, from the clamour of concerned citizens such as famed inventor Samuel F.B. Morse sounding the alarm about the dangers of Irish Catholic immigrants in the 1830s, '40s, and '50s to Henry Cabot Lodge, a U.S. senator who warned against unrestricted immigration in 1896. The topic of immigration and the need for reform resurfaces
repeatedly in the United States. Although many laws have been passed, little has been resolved, and in the early 21st century
the topic of immigration continued to be an issue. In 2006 the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that upwards of 12 million foreign
nationals were living illegally in the United States. Of these, it was estimated, more than three-fourths were born in South
or Central America, with more than half of this group coming from Mexico. Many rallies—some drawing as many as half a million people—were held around the country in 2006. Demonstrators demanded
recognition for the positive contributions made by illegal immigrants to the United States and urged that they be given a
way to obtain U.S. citizenship and the rights and protections that accompany it; they opposed immigration-policy legislation
that would not support these goals. Many others, however, objected to the relaxing of immigration policies and claimed that
illegal immigrants were causing more harm than good to the U.S. economy. In the midst of this debate, Pres. George W. Bush delivered a national speech (reprinted below) addressing these issues and outlining his proposal to arrive at an immigration
policy to satisfy both sides.

Good evening. I've asked for a few minutes of your time to discuss a matter of national importance—the reform of America's
immigration system.

The issue of immigration stirs intense emotions, and in recent weeks, Americans have seen those emotions on display. On the
streets of major cities, crowds have rallied in support of those in our country illegally. At our southern border, others
have organized to stop illegal immigrants from coming in. Across the country, Americans are trying to reconcile these contrasting
images. And in Washington, the debate over immigration reform has reached a time of decision. Tonight, I will make it clear
where I stand, and where I want to lead our country on this vital issue.

We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system. For decades, the United States has not been in complete
control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border, and millions
have stayed.

Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it
difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools
and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems. Yet we must
remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their
faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American
law.

We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition,
which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals. America can be a lawful society and
a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system
that is secure, orderly, and fair. So I support comprehensive immigration reform that will accomplish five clear objectives.

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent
requirement of our national security. Our objective is straightforward: The border should be open to trade and lawful immigration,
and shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists.

I was a governor of a state that has a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. So I know how difficult it is to enforce the border,
and how important it is. Since I became President, we've increased funding for border security by 66 percent, and expanded
the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents. The men and women of our Border Patrol are doing a fine job in difficult
circumstances, and over the past five years, they have apprehended and sent home about six million people entering America
illegally.

Despite this progress, we do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that. Tonight I'm calling
on Congress to provide funding for dramatic improvements in manpower and technology at the border. By the end of 2008, we'll
increase the number of Border Patrol officers by an additional 6,000. When these new agents are deployed, we'll have more
than doubled the size of the Border Patrol during my presidency.

At the same time, we're launching the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history. We will
construct high-tech fences in urban corridors, and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas. We'll employ motion
sensors, infrared cameras, and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings. America has the best technology in the
world, and we will ensure that the Border Patrol has the technology they need to do their job and secure our border.

Training thousands of new Border Patrol agents and bringing the most advanced technology to the border will take time. Yet
the need to secure our border is urgent. So I'm announcing several immediate steps to strengthen border enforcement during
this period of transition:

One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So, in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard
members will be deployed to our southern border. The Border Patrol will remain in the lead. The Guard will assist the Border
Patrol by operating surveillance systems, analyzing intelligence, installing fences and vehicle barriers, building patrol
roads, and providing training. Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities—that duty will be done
by the Border Patrol. This initial commitment of Guard members would last for a period of one year. After that, the number
of Guard forces will be reduced as new Border Patrol agents and new technologies come online. It is important for Americans
to know that we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, to respond to natural disasters, and to help secure our
border.

The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor, and our friend. We will continue
to work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border, to confront common problems like drug trafficking and
crime, and to reduce illegal immigration.

Another way to help during this period of transition is through state and local law enforcement in our border communities.
So we'll increase federal funding for state and local authorities assisting the Border Patrol on targeted enforcement missions.
We will give state and local authorities the specialized training they need to help federal officers apprehend and detain
illegal immigrants. State and local law enforcement officials are an important part of our border security and they need to
be a part of our strategy to secure our borders.

The steps I've outlined will improve our ability to catch people entering our country illegally. At the same time, we must
ensure that every illegal immigrant we catch crossing our southern border is returned home. More than 85 percent of the illegal
immigrants we catch crossing the southern border are Mexicans, and most are sent back home within 24 hours. But when we catch
illegal immigrants from other country &lsqb;sic&rsqb; it is not as easy to send them home. For many years, the government
did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released
back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up. This
practice, called “catch and release,” is unacceptable, and we will end it.

We're taking several important steps to meet this goal. We've expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities, and
we will continue to add more. We've expedited the legal process to cut the average deportation time. And we're making it clear
to foreign governments that they must accept back their citizens who violate our immigration laws. As a result of these actions,
we've ended “catch and release” for illegal immigrants from some countries. And I will ask Congress for additional funding
and legal authority, so we can end “catch and release” at the southern border once and for all. When people know that they'll
be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally, they will be less likely to try to sneak in.

Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. The reality is that there are many people on the
other side of our border who will do anything to come to America to work and build a better life. They walk across miles of
desert in the summer heat, or hide in the back of 18-wheelers to reach our country. This creates enormous pressure on our
border that walls and patrols alone will not stop. To secure the border effectively, we must reduce the numbers of people
trying to sneak across.

Therefore, I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in
an orderly way, for a limited period of time. This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers
for jobs Americans are not doing. Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks.
And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.

A temporary worker program would meet the needs of our economy, and it would give honest immigrants a way to provide for their
families while respecting the law. A temporary worker program would reduce the appeal of human smugglers, and make it less
likely that people would risk their lives to cross the border. It would ease the financial burden on state and local governments,
by replacing illegal workers with lawful taxpayers. And above all, a temporary worker program would add to our security by
making certain we know who is in our country and why they are here.

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this
country illegally. Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees because of the widespread problem
of document fraud. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include a better system for verifying documents and work
eligibility. A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should
use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper-proof. A tamper-proof card would help us enforce
the law, and leave employers with no excuse for violating it. And by making it harder for illegal immigrants to find work
in our country, we would discourage people from crossing the border illegally in the first place.

Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are here already. They should not be given an automatic
path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully, and it would
invite further waves of illegal immigration.

Some in this country argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant, and that any proposal short of this amounts
to amnesty. I disagree. It is neither wise, nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United
States, and send them across the border. There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship
for every illegal immigrant, and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes there are differences between
an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently, and someone who has worked here for many years, and has a home, a family,
and an otherwise clean record.

I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for
breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English, and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these
conditions should be able to apply for citizenship, but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line
behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I've just described is not amnesty, it is a way for those
who have broken the law to pay their debt to society, and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.

Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one nation out of many peoples. The
success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans.
Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability
to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America. English allows newcomers
to go from picking crops to opening a grocery, from cleaning offices to running offices, from a life of low-paying jobs to
a diploma, a career, and a home of their own. When immigrants assimilate and advance in our society, they realize their dreams,
they renew our spirit, and they add to the unity of America.

Tonight, I want to speak directly to members of the House and the Senate: An immigration reform bill needs to be comprehensive,
because all elements of this problem must be addressed together, or none of them will be solved at all. The House has passed
an immigration bill. The Senate should act by the end of this month so we can work out the differences between the two bills,
and Congress can pass a comprehensive bill for me to sign into law.

America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone. Feelings run deep on this issue, and
as we work it out, all of us need to keep some things in mind. We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger,
or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain. We must always remember that real
lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their
citizenship papers say.

I know many of you listening tonight have a parent or a grandparent who came here from another country with dreams of a better
life. You know what freedom meant to them, and you know that America is a more hopeful country because of their hard work
and sacrifice. As President, I've had the opportunity to meet people of many backgrounds, and hear what America means to them.
On a visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Laura and I met a wounded Marine named Guadalupe Denogean. Master Gunnery Sergeant
Denogean came to the United States from Mexico when he was a boy. He spent his summers picking crops with his family, and
then he volunteered for the United States Marine Corps as soon as he was able. During the liberation of Iraq, Master Gunnery
Sergeant Denogean was seriously injured. And when asked if he had any requests, he made two: a promotion for the corporal
who helped rescue him, and the chance to become an American citizen. And when this brave Marine raised his right hand, and
swore an oath to become a citizen of the country he had defended for more than 26 years, I was honored to stand at his side.

We will always be proud to welcome people like Guadalupe Denogean as fellow Americans. Our new immigrants are just what they've
always been—people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom. And America remains what she has always been: the
great hope on the horizon, an open door to the future, a blessed and promised land. We honor the heritage of all who come
here, no matter where they come from, because we trust in our country's genius for making us all Americans—one nation under
God.

About to undertake the arduous duties that I have been appointed to perform by the choice of a free people, I avail myself
of this customary and solemn occasion to express the gratitude which their confidence inspires and to acknowledge the accountability
which my situation enjoins. While the magnitude of their interests convinces me that no thanks can be adequate to the honor
they have conferred, it admonishes me that the best return I can make is the zealous dedication of my humble abilities to
their service and their good.

As the instrument of the Federal Constitution it will devolve on me for a stated period to execute the laws of the United
States, to superintend their foreign and their confederate relations, to manage their revenue, to command their forces, and,
by communications to the Legislature, to watch over and to promote their interests generally. And the principles of action
by which I shall endeavor to accomplish this circle of duties it is now proper for me briefly to explain.

In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the extent of the Executive
power, trusting thereby to discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority. With foreign nations it
will be my study to preserve peace and to cultivate friendship on fair and honorable terms, and in the adjustment of any differences
that may exist or arise to exhibit the forbearance becoming a powerful nation rather than the sensibility belonging to a gallant
people.

In such measures as I may be called on to pursue in regard to the rights of the separate States I hope to be animated by a
proper respect for those sovereign members of our Union, taking care not to confound the powers they have reserved to themselves
with those they have granted to the Confederacy.

The management of the public revenue-that searching operation in all governments-is among the most delicate and important
trusts in ours, and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official solicitude. Under every aspect in which
it can be considered it would appear that advantage must result from the observance of a strict and faithful economy. This
I shall aim at the more anxiously both because it will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt, the unnecessary
duration of which is incompatible with real independence, and because it will counteract that tendency to public and private
profligacy which a profuse expenditure of money by the Government is but too apt to engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the
attainment of this desirable end are to be found in the regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress for the specific appropriation
of public money and the prompt accountability of public officers.

With regard to a proper selection of the subjects of impost with a view to revenue, it would seem to me that the spirit of
equity, caution, and compromise in which the Constitution was formed requires that the great interests of agriculture, commerce,
and manufactures should be equally favored, and that perhaps the only exception to this rule should consist in the peculiar
encouragement of any products of either of them that may be found essential to our national independence.

Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal
Government, are of high importance.

Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment,
nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the
civil power. The gradual increase of our Navy, whose flag has displayed in distant climes our skill in navigation and our
fame in arms; the preservation of our forts, arsenals, and dockyards, and the introduction of progressive improvements in
the discipline and science of both branches of our military service are so plainly prescribed by prudence that I should be
excused for omitting their mention sooner than for enlarging on their importance. But the bulwark of our defense is the national
militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible. As long as our Government
is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person
and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending; and so long as it is worth defending
a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional mortifications we may be subjected
to, but a million of armed freemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe. To any just system,
therefore, calculated to strengthen this natural safeguard of the country I shall cheerfully lend all the aid in my power.

It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy,
and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our
Government and the feelings of our people.

The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked,
the task of reform, which will require particularly the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the
Federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes which have disturbed
the rightful course of appointment and have placed or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands.

In the performance of a task thus generally delineated I shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents will insure
in their respective stations able and faithful cooperation, depending for the advancement of the public service more on the
integrity and zeal of the public officers than on their numbers.

A diffidence, perhaps too just, in my own qualifications will teach me to look with reverence to the examples of public virtue
left by my illustrious predecessors, and with veneration to the lights that flow from the mind that founded and the mind that
reformed our system. The same diffidence induces me to hope for instruction and aid from the coordinate branches of the Government,
and for the indulgence and support of my fellow-citizens generally. And a firm reliance on the goodness of that Power whose
providence mercifully protected our national infancy, and has since upheld our liberties in various vicissitudes, encourages
me to offer up my ardent supplications that He will continue to make our beloved country the object of His divine care and
gracious benediction.

Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, led the United States to break diplomatic relations on February 3. President Wilson continued to hope
for peace, but events seemed to make American involvement more and more inevitable. The publication of the secret "Zimmermann
Note" from the German foreign secretary to his representative in Mexico proposing a Mexican-Japanese-German alliance against
the United States seemed to push the president closer than ever to war. American merchant ships were armed but losses to the
German submarine increased sharply. On April 2 Wilson, fully aware of the terrible consequences of his decision, went before
Congress with the following message calling for a declaration of war. Congress declared war on Germany four days later.

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made,
and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility
of making.

On the 3rd of February last, I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German government
that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its
submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts
of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.

That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial
government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that
passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek
to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair
chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing
instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.

The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo,
their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy
for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying
relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the
proscribed areas by the German government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk
with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed
to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would
be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world.
By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that
could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.

This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had
no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing
to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse
of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton
and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always,
even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of
peaceful and innocent people cannot be.

The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American
ships have been sunk, American lives taken in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of; but the ships and people
of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination.
The challenge is to all mankind.

Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of
counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away.
Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of
right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with
arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence.
But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines
have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has
assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open
sea.

It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their
own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German government denies the right of neutrals
to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist
has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on
our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be.

Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than
ineffectual: it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war
without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making:
we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or
violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities
which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare
the recent course of the Imperial German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people
of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take
immediate steps, not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ
all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments
now at war with Germany and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits,
in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of
all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the
most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the
Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will
involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least
500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization
of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can
equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by
taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money
borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships
and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.

In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished, we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of
interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty--for
it will be a very practical duty--of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain
only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration
of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure
to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the government upon which the responsibility
of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world, what
our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events
of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly
the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22nd of January last; the same that I had
in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3rd of February and on the 26th of February.

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and
autocratic power and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and
of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where
the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence
of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.
We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted
that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments
that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon
their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was
a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their
rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed
to use their fellowmen as pawns and tools.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical
posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked
out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression,
carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts
or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion
commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government
could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion.
Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no
one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common
end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful
and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it
best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships
of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit
of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in
origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all
their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is
a fit partner for a League of Honor.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that
from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with
spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our
industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily
not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously
near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the
support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial government accredited to the government
of the United States.

Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them, we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible
upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us (who
were no doubt as ignorant of them as we ourselves were) but only in the selfish designs of a government that did what it pleased
and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that government entertains
no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies
against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can
never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what
purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of
battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify
its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight
thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights
of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We
have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation
for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when
those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share
with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe
with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial government of Germany because they have not made war upon
us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified
endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German
government, and it has therefore not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambassador recently
accredited to this government by the Imperial and Royal government of Austria-Hungary; but that government has not actually
engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of
postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced
into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act
without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in
armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is
running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the
early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us--however hard it may be for them, for the time
being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.

We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship--exercising a patience
and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship
in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among
us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government
in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance.
They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there
should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will
lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are,
it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people
into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right
is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small
nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations
and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride
of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that
gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together.
We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all
citizens.

This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.

Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves
in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time
of change-rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new
weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways.

Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.

THE AMERICAN COVENANT

They came here-the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened-to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made
a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes
of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.

JUSTICE AND CHANGE

First, justice was the promise that all who made the journey would share in the fruits of the land.

In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go
hungry. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great land of learning and scholars,
young people must be taught to read and write.

For the more than 30 years that I have served this Nation, I have believed that this injustice to our people, this waste of
our resources, was our real enemy. For 30 years or more, with the resources I have had, I have vigilantly fought against it.
I have learned, and I know, that it will not surrender easily.

But change has given us new weapons. Before this generation of Americans is finished, this enemy will not only retreat-it
will be conquered.

Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, "His color is not mine," or "His beliefs
are strange and different," in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this Nation.

LIBERTY AND CHANGE

Liberty was the second article of our covenant. It was self-government. It was our Bill of Rights. But it was more. America
would be a place where each man could be proud to be himself: stretching his talents, rejoicing in his work, important in
the life of his neighbors and his nation.

This has become more difficult in a world where change and growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the judgment of
men. We must work to provide the knowledge and the surroundings which can enlarge the possibilities of every citizen.

The American covenant called on us to help show the way for the liberation of man. And that is today our goal. Thus, if as
a nation there is much outside our control, as a people no stranger is outside our hope.

Change has brought new meaning to that old mission. We can never again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers
and troubles that we once called "foreign" now constantly live among us. If American lives must end, and American treasure
be spilled, in countries we barely know, that is the price that change has demanded of conviction and of our enduring covenant.

Think of our world as it looks from the rocket that is heading toward Mars. It is like a child's globe, hanging in space,
the continents stuck to its side like colored maps. We are all fellow passengers on a dot of earth. And each of us, in the
span of time, has really only a moment among our companions.

How incredible it is that in this fragile existence, we should hate and destroy one another. There are possibilities enough
for all who will abandon mastery over others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough for all to seek their happiness
in their own way.

Our Nation's course is abundantly clear. We aspire to nothing that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our fellow
man, but man's dominion over tyranny and misery. But more is required. Men want to be a part of a common enterprise-a cause
greater than themselves. Each of us must find a way to advance the purpose of the Nation, thus finding new purpose for ourselves.
Without this, we shall become a nation of strangers.

UNION AND CHANGE

The third article was union. To those who were small and few against the wilderness, the success of liberty demanded the strength
of union. Two centuries of change have made this true again.

No longer need capitalist and worker, farmer and clerk, city and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working shoulder
to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all. We have discovered that every child who learns, every man who finds
work, every sick body that is made whole-like a candle added to an altar-brightens the hope of all the faithful.

So let us reject any among us who seek to reopen old wounds and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking
nation.

Let us now join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. For
the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve progress without strife, to achieve change without hatred-not without
difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding divisions which scar the union for generations.

THE AMERICAN BELIEF

Under this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have become a nation-prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have kept
our freedom. But we have no promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek greatness
with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit.

I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement
of becoming-always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again-but always trying and always gaining.

In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again.

If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom
asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.

If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own,
but, rather because of what we believe.

For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in
justice and liberty and union, and in our own Union. We believe that every man must someday be free. And we believe in ourselves.

Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime-in depression and in war-they have awaited our defeat. Each
time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could not see or that they could not even imagine.
It brought us victory. And it will again.

For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached
and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say "Farewell." Is a new world coming? We welcome it-and
we will bend it to the hopes of man.

To these trusted public servants and to my family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding
road, and to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful day in November
1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can."

But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.

For myself, I ask only, in the words of an ancient leader: "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in
before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?"

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Chief Justice, and fellow citizens, I accept with humility the honor which the American people have
conferred upon me. I accept it with a deep resolve to do all that I can for the welfare of this Nation and for the peace of
the world.

In performing the duties of my office, I need the help and prayers of every one of you. I ask for your encouragement and your
support. The tasks we face are difficult, and we can accomplish them only if we work together.

Each period of our national history has had its special challenges. Those that confront us now are as momentous as any in
the past. Today marks the beginning not only of a new administration, but of a period that will be eventful, perhaps decisive,
for us and for the world.

It may be our lot to experience, and in large measure to bring about, a major turning point in the long history of the human
race. The first half of this century has been marked by unprecedented and brutal attacks on the rights of man, and by the
two most frightful wars in history. The supreme need of our time is for men to learn to live together in peace and harmony.

The peoples of the earth face the future with grave uncertainty, composed almost equally of great hopes and great fears. In
this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership.

It is fitting, therefore, that we take this occasion to proclaim to the world the essential principles of the faith by which
we live, and to declare our aims to all peoples.

The American people stand firm in the faith which has inspired this Nation from the beginning. We believe that all men have
a right to equal justice under law and equal opportunity to share in the common good. We believe that all men have the right
to freedom of thought and expression. We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.

From this faith we will not be moved.

The American people desire, and are determined to work for, a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern
themselves as they see fit, and to achieve a decent and satisfying life. Above all else, our people desire, and are determined
to work for, peace on earth-a just and lasting peace-based on genuine agreement freely arrived at by equals.

In the pursuit of these aims, the United States and other like-minded nations find themselves directly opposed by a regime
with contrary aims and a totally different concept of life.

That regime adheres to a false philosophy which purports to offer freedom, security, and greater opportunity to mankind. Misled
by this philosophy, many peoples have sacrificed their liberties only to learn to their sorrow that deceit and mockery, poverty
and tyranny, are their reward.

Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires
the rule of strong masters.

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to
govern himself with reason and justice.

Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause, punishment without trial, and forced labor as the chattel
of the state. It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce, what leaders he shall follow, and what
thoughts he shall think.

Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility
of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom in the exercise of his abilities.

Communism maintains that social wrongs can be corrected only by violence.

Democracy has proved that social justice can be achieved through peaceful change.

Communism holds that the world is so deeply divided into opposing classes that war is inevitable.

These differences between communism and democracy do not concern the United States alone. People everywhere are coming to
realize that what is involved is material well-being, human dignity, and the right to believe in and worship God.

I state these differences, not to draw issues of belief as such, but because the actions resulting from the Communist philosophy
are a threat to the efforts of free nations to bring about world recovery and lasting peace.

Since the end of hostilities, the United States has invested its substance and its energy in a great constructive effort to
restore peace, stability, and freedom to the world.

We have sought no territory and we have imposed our will on none. We have asked for no privileges we would not extend to others.

We have constantly and vigorously supported the United Nations and related agencies as a means of applying democratic principles
to international relations. We have consistently advocated and relied upon peaceful settlement of disputes among nations.

We have made every effort to secure agreement on effective international control of our most powerful weapon, and we have
worked steadily for the limitation and control of all armaments.

We have encouraged, by precept and example, the expansion of world trade on a sound and fair basis.

Almost a year ago, in company with 16 free nations of Europe, we launched the greatest cooperative economic program in history.
The purpose of that unprecedented effort is to invigorate and strengthen democracy in Europe, so that the free people of that
continent can resume their rightful place in the forefront of civilization and can contribute once more to the security and
welfare of the world.

Our efforts have brought new hope to all mankind. We have beaten back despair and defeatism. We have saved a number of countries
from losing their liberty. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world now agree with us, that we need not have war-that
we can have peace.

The initiative is ours.

We are moving on with other nations to build an even stronger structure of international order and justice. We shall have
as our partners countries which, no longer solely concerned with the problem of national survival, are now working to improve
the standards of living of all their people. We are ready to undertake new projects to strengthen the free world.

In the coming years, our program for peace and freedom will emphasize four major courses of action.

First, we will continue to give unfaltering support to the United Nations and related agencies, and we will continue to search
for ways to strengthen their authority and increase their effectiveness. We believe that the United Nations will be strengthened
by the new nations which are being formed in lands now advancing toward self-government under democratic principles.

Second, we will continue our programs for world economic recovery.

This means, first of all, that we must keep our full weight behind the European recovery program. We are confident of the
success of this major venture in world recovery. We believe that our partners in this effort will achieve the status of self-supporting
nations once again.

In addition, we must carry out our plans for reducing the barriers to world trade and increasing its volume. Economic recovery
and peace itself depend on increased world trade.

Third, we will strengthen freedom-loving nations against the dangers of aggression.

We are now working out with a number of countries a joint agreement designed to strengthen the security of the North Atlantic
area. Such an agreement would take the form of a collective defense arrangement within the terms of the United Nations Charter.

We have already established such a defense pact for the Western Hemisphere by the treaty of Rio de Janeiro.

The primary purpose of these agreements is to provide unmistakable proof of the joint determination of the free countries
to resist armed attack from any quarter. Each country participating in these arrangements must contribute all it can to the
common defense.

If we can make it sufficiently clear, in advance, that any armed attack affecting our national security would be met with
overwhelming force, the armed attack might never occur.

I hope soon to send to the Senate a treaty respecting the North Atlantic security plan.

In addition, we will provide military advice and equipment to free nations which will cooperate with us in the maintenance
of peace and security.

Fourth, we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available
for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.

More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims
of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more
prosperous areas.

For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and the skill to relieve the suffering of these people.

The United States is pre-eminent among nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. The material resources
which we can afford to use for the assistance of other peoples are limited. But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge
are constantly growing and are inexhaustible.

I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order
to help them realize their aspirations for a better life. And, in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital
investment in areas needing development.

Our aim should be to help the free peoples of the world, through their own efforts, to produce more food, more clothing, more
materials for housing, and more mechanical power to lighten their burdens.

We invite other countries to pool their technological resources in this undertaking. Their contributions will be warmly welcomed.
This should be a cooperative enterprise in which all nations work together through the United Nations and its specialized
agencies wherever practicable. It must be a worldwide effort for the achievement of peace, plenty, and freedom.

With the cooperation of business, private capital, agriculture, and labor in this country, this program can greatly increase
the industrial activity in other nations and can raise substantially their standards of living.

Such new economic developments must be devised and controlled to benefit the peoples of the areas in which they are established.
Guarantees to the investor must be balanced by guarantees in the interest of the people whose resources and whose labor go
into these developments.

The old imperialism-exploitation for foreign profit-has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development
based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing.

All countries, including our own, will greatly benefit from a constructive program for the better use of the world's human
and natural resources. Experience shows that our commerce with other countries expands as they progress industrially and economically.

Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace. And the key to greater production is a wider and more vigorous application
of modern scientific and technical knowledge.

Only by helping the least fortunate of its members to help themselves can the human family achieve the decent, satisfying
life that is the right of all people.

Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against
their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies-hunger, misery, and despair.

On the basis of these four major courses of action we hope to help create the conditions that will lead eventually to personal
freedom and happiness for all mankind.

If we are to be successful in carrying out these policies, it is clear that we must have continued prosperity in this country
and we must keep ourselves strong.

Slowly but surely we are weaving a world fabric of international security and growing prosperity.

We are aided by all who wish to live in freedom from fear-even by those who live today in fear under their own governments.

We are aided by all who want relief from the lies of propaganda-who desire truth and sincerity.

We are aided by all who desire self-government and a voice in deciding their own affairs.

We are aided by all who long for economic security-for the security and abundance that men in free societies can enjoy.

We are aided by all who desire freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to live their own lives for useful ends.

Our allies are the millions who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

In due time, as our stability becomes manifest, as more and more nations come to know the benefits of democracy and to participate
in growing abundance, I believe that those countries which now oppose us will abandon their delusions and join with the free
nations of the world in a just settlement of international differences.

Events have brought our American democracy to new influence and new responsibilities. They will test our courage, our devotion
to duty, and our concept of liberty.

But I say to all men, what we have achieved in liberty, we will surpass in greater liberty.

Steadfast in our faith in the Almighty, we will advance toward a world where man's freedom is secure.

To that end we will devote our strength, our resources, and our firmness of resolve. With God's help, the future of mankind
will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace.

There has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive
majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President
have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds
to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.

It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that
party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic
Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view. Some old things with which we had grown
familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we
have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien
and sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume
the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight
into our own life.

We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth,
in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual
men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the
world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and
counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have
built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those
who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident. Our life
contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.

But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. We have
squandered a great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, without
which our genius for enterprise would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal as well
as admirably efficient. We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough
to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual
cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through.
The groans and agony of it all had not yet reached our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the
mines and factories, and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With the great Government
went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes. The great Government
we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.

At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with
the sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct
the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing
it. There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been
"Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which made
it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had
not forgotten our morals. We remembered well enough that we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the humblest as well
as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it with pride. But we were
very heedless and in a hurry to be great.

We have come now to the sober second thought. The scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have made up our minds
to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always
carried at our hearts. Our work is a work of restoration.

We have itemized with some degree of particularity the things that ought to be altered and here are some of the chief items:
A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and
makes the Government a facile instrument in the hand of private interests; a banking and currency system based upon the necessity
of the Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an
industrial system which, take it on all its sides, financial as well as administrative, holds capital in leading strings,
restricts the liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits without renewing or conserving the natural resources
of the country; a body of agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great business undertakings or served
as it should be through the instrumentality of science taken directly to the farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best
suited to its practical needs; watercourses undeveloped, waste places unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing without
plan or prospect of renewal, unregarded waste heaps at every mine. We have studied as perhaps no other nation has the most
effective means of production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we should either as organizers of industry, as statesmen,
or as individuals.

Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which government may be put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding the
health of the Nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence.
This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be
no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded
in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter,
control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent
parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions
of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business of justice and
legal efficiency.

These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, fundamental
safeguarding of property and of individual right. This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift everything that concerns
our life as a Nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. It is
inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is inconceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are
or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified,
not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in
the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement
of excursions whither they can not tell. Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.

And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred
by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings
with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence,
where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics
but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people,
whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will
to choose our high course of action.

This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity.
Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live
up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side.
God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!

For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school
teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: "We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles."

Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office
on the Bible my mother gave me a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah:

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8)

This inauguration ceremony marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our Government, and a new spirit among us all. A
President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.

Two centuries ago our Nation's birth was a milestone in the long quest for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which
excited the founders of this Nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set forth today, but rather urge
a fresh faith in the old dream.

Ours was the first society openly to define itself in terms of both spirituality and of human liberty. It is that unique self-definition
which has given us an exceptional appeal, but it also imposes on us a special obligation, to take on those moral duties which,
when assumed, seem invariably to be in our own best interests.

You have given me a great responsibility-to stay close to you, to be worthy of you, and to exemplify what you are. Let us
create together a new national spirit of unity and trust. Your strength can compensate for my weakness, and your wisdom can
help to minimize my mistakes.

Let us learn together and laugh together and work together and pray together, confident that in the end we will triumph together
in the right.

The American dream endures. We must once again have full faith in our country-and in one another. I believe America can be
better. We can be even stronger than before.

Let our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of our Nation, for we know that if we despise
our own government we have no future. We recall in special times when we have stood briefly, but magnificently, united. In
those times no prize was beyond our grasp.

But we cannot dwell upon remembered glory. We cannot afford to drift. We reject the prospect of failure or mediocrity or an
inferior quality of life for any person. Our Government must at the same time be both competent and compassionate.

We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our
commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute
the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.

We have learned that "more" is not necessarily "better," that even our great Nation has its recognized limits, and that we
can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems. We cannot afford to do everything, nor can we afford to lack boldness
as we meet the future. So, together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must simply do our best.

Our Nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home. And we know that the best way to enhance freedom in other lands
is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others. We will not behave in foreign places so as to violate our rules and standards
here at home, for we know that the trust which our Nation earns is essential to our strength.

The world itself is now dominated by a new spirit. Peoples more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding
their place in the sun-not just for the benefit of their own physical condition, but for basic human rights.

The passion for freedom is on the rise. Tapping this new spirit, there can be no nobler nor more ambitious task for America
to undertake on this day of a new beginning than to help shape a just and peaceful world that is truly humane.

We are a strong nation, and we will maintain strength so sufficient that it need not be proven in combat-a quiet strength
based not merely on the size of an arsenal, but on the nobility of ideas.

We will be ever vigilant and never vulnerable, and we will fight our wars against poverty, ignorance, and injustice-for those
are the enemies against which our forces can be honorably marshaled.

We are a purely idealistic Nation, but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.

Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference
for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but
it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being
of all people.

The world is still engaged in a massive armaments race designed to ensure continuing equivalent strength among potential adversaries.
We pledge perseverance and wisdom in our efforts to limit the world's armaments to those necessary for each nation's own domestic
safety. And we will move this year a step toward ultimate goal-the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth. We
urge all other people to join us, for success can mean life instead of death.

Within us, the people of the United States, there is evident a serious and purposeful rekindling of confidence. And I join
in the hope that when my time as your President has ended, people might say this about our Nation:

-that we had remembered the words of Micah and renewed our search for humility, mercy, and justice;

-that we had torn down the barriers that separated those of different race and region and religion, and where there had been
mistrust, built unity, with a respect for diversity;

-that we had found productive work for those able to perform it;

-that we had strengthened the American family, which is the basis of our society;

-that we had ensured respect for the law, and equal treatment under the law, for the weak and the powerful, for the rich and
the poor;

-and that we had enabled our people to be proud of their own Government once again.

I would hope that the nations of the world might say that we had built a lasting peace, built not on weapons of war but on
international policies which reflect our own most precious values.

These are not just my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our Nation's continuing moral
strength and our belief in an undiminished, ever-expanding American dream.

Following the release of the tape transcripts on August 5, 1974, many members of Congress urged the President to resign to
save the country the ordeal of a protracted debate on impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate. On August 7, three
leading congressional Republicans, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Representative John Rhodes, went to the White
House to tell the President he had virtually no support left in Congress, even among members of his own party. Therefore,
on Thursday evening, August 8, President Nixon addressed the nation via television to announce that he would be resigning
his office the next day. On the morning of the 9th, after bidding farewell to the White House staff, he and his family flew
to their home in California. While he was airborne, his resignation became effective; and Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the
38th President.

Good evening.

This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history
of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter than I believe affected the national interest.

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the
long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected
me.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress
to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional
process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process
and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer
a need for the process to be prolonged.

I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously
urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.

From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter
I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry
out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as
President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly
at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention
of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and
prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at
that hour in this office.

As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here
in this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 2 1/2 years. But in turning over direction of the
Government to Vice President Ford, I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago, that the
leadership of America will be in good hands.

In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will
fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans.

As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first
essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us,
and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.

By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed
in America.

I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only
that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best
interest of the Nation.

To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in
supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support.

And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed
me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might
differ.

So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit
of all Americans.

I shall leave this office with regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President
for the past 5 1/2 years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our Nation and the world. They have been
a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the Administration,
the Congress, and the people.

But the challenges ahead are equally great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts of the Congress and the
people working in cooperation with the new Administration.

We have ended America's longest war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world, the goals ahead are even more
far-reaching and more difficult. We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said of this generation, our generation
of Americans, by the people of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.

We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

We must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain
not our enemies but our friends.

In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy for nearly 20 years,
now look on us as their friends. We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle
East and so that the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.

Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms.
But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot
destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.

We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that
the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.

Around the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions of people who live in terrible
poverty, even starvation. We must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and expanding production for peace
so that people everywhere on this earth can at last look forward in their children's time, if not in our own time, to having
the necessities for a decent life.

Here in America, we are fortunate that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty but also the means to live
full and good and, by the world's standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward a goal of not only more
and better jobs but of full opportunity for every American and of what we are striving so hard right now to achieve, prosperity
without inflation.

For more than a quarter of a century in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this era. I have fought for
what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that
were entrusted to me.

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs
and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to
do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows
in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue
to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman, a Senator, a Vice President,
and President, the cause of peace not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice, and opportunity for all
of our people.

There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.

When I first took the oath of office as President 5 1/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment, to "consecrate my office,
my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations."

I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that
the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our
children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.

This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope
will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.

To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it,
I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.

In his annual message to Congress on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt called upon Congress to enact the Lend-Lease program
that he had first proposed at a press conference the previous December. Though the first part of the message concerned itself
with the war in Europe and sought to define America's war aims, the latter part was more significant as an expression of Roosevelt's
vision of the future. Known as the Four Freedoms Speech, it was a formulation of the social and political goals that the President
hoped to attain for the American people, as well as the people of the world, following the war.

Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all our
fellowmen within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect for the rights and
dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.

Our national policy is this:

First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive
national defense.

Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support
of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere.
By this support, we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail, and we strengthen the defense and security
of our own nation.

Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition
that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated
by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national
policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. Today it is abundantly evident that American
citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger. Therefore, the
immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production.

Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases these goals are being
reached ahead of time; in some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there are slight but not serious delays; and in some
cases--and I am sorry to say very important cases--we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of our plans.
The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding
up our methods of production with every passing day. And today's best is not good enough for tomorrow.

I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men in charge of the program represent the best in training, ability,
and patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us will be satisfied until the job is done.

No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results.

To give two illustrations:

We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes; we are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and
to catch up.

We are ahead of schedule in building warships; but we are working to get even further ahead of schedule.

To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of implements
of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty comes at the beginning of the program, when new tools and plant facilities
and new assembly lines and shipways must first be constructed before the actual matériel begins to flow steadily and speedily
from them.

The Congress, of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is
certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those
of the nations we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.

New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations
and authorizations to carry on what we have begun. I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture
additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor
nations.

Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need manpower. They
do need billions of dollars' worth of the weapons of defense.

The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them in ready cash. We cannot, and will not, tell them they must surrender
merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have. I do not recommend that we make them
a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons--a loan to be repaid in dollars. I recommend that we make it possible
for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. Nearly
all of their matériel would, if the time ever came, be useful for our own defense.

Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide
how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who, by their determined and heroic resistance,
are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense. For what we send abroad we shall be repaid, within a reasonable
time following the close of hostilities, in similar materials or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds which they can
produce and which we need.

Let us say to the democracies, "We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies,
our resources, and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you,
in ever increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge."

In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of
international law and as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an
act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be. When the dictators are ready to make war upon us,
they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an
act of war. Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance and, therefore,
becomes an instrument of oppression.

The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid
felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The nation's hands
must not be tied when the nation's life is in danger. We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency--as serious
as war itself--demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give way to the national
need.

A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders
of business, of labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their
own groups.

The best way of dealing with the few slackers or troublemakers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example;
and if that fails, to use the sovereignty of government to save government.

As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses and those behind them
who build our defenses must have the stamina and courage which come from an unshakable belief in the manner of life which
they are defending. The mighty action which we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things worth fighting
for.

The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of
their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people,
have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.

Certainly this is no time to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution
which is today a supreme factor in the world. There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.
The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: Equality of opportunity
for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for
the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly
rising standard of living. These are the simple and basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable
complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the
degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part
of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I recommend that a greater portion of this
great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich
out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes
to guide our legislation. If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks,
will give you their applause.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every
nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point
and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere
in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the
crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception--the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination
and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change--in a perpetual peaceful revolution--a revolution
which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions--without the concentration camp or the quicklime in
the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom
under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle
to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is in our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save
victory.

The complexity of the issues involved in the debate about the Missouri Compromise is revealed in the selection that appears below from the diary of John Quincy Adams, dated March 3, 1820, only three days
before the Missouri Enabling Act went into effect. President Monroe had assembled his cabinet (Adams was secretary of state)
for advice before signing the bills admitting Maine and Missouri, and Adams recommended their acceptance. He did so despite
the fact that he believed that slavery was a profound moral evil. At the same time, however, he was convinced that the Constitution
did not give the federal government the power to abolish the institution. "The abolition of slavery where it is established
must be left entirely to the people of the state itself," he declared in a letter of the same date to Governor Jonathan Jennings
of Indiana. "The healthy have no right to reproach or to prescribe for the diseased."

When I came this day to my office, I found there a note requesting me to call at one o'clock at the President's house. It
was then one, and I immediately went over. He expected that the two bills--for the admission of Maine, and to enable Missouri
to make a constitution--would have been brought to him for his signature, and he had summoned all the members of the administration
to ask their opinions, in writing, to be deposited in the Department of State, upon two questions: (1) whether Congress had
a constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory; and (2) whether the 8th Section of the Missouri bill (which interdicts
slavery forever in the territory north of thirty-six and a half latitude) was applicable only to the territorial state, or could extend to
it after it should become a state. . . .

After this meeting, I walked home with Calhoun, who said that . . . in the Southern country . . . domestic labor was confined to the blacks; and such was the prejudice
that if he, who was the most popular man in his district, were to keep a white servant in his house, his character and reputation
would be irretrievably ruined.

I said that this confounding of the ideas of servitude and labor was one of the bad effects of slavery; but he thought it
attended with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all kinds of labor--not, for example, to farming. He himself
had often held the plough; so had his father. Manufacturing and mechanical labor was not degrading. It was only manual labor--the
proper work of slaves. No white person could descend to that. And it was the best guarantee to equality among the whites.
It produced an unvarying level among them. It not only did not excite but did not even admit of inequalities, by which one
white man could domineer over another.

I told Calhoun I could not see things in the same light. It is, in truth, all perverted sentiment--mistaking labor for slavery,
and dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract
they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders
of our old Grandam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory
in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noblehearted than the plain freemen who labor for
subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs
and cannot treat Negroes like dogs.

It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue
and vice; for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity
to depend upon the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and reduces man endowed with logical powers to maintain that
slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion, that slaves are happy and contented in their condition, that between master
and slave there are ties of mutual attachment and affection, that the virtues of the master are refined and exalted by the
degradation of the slave; while at the same time they vent execrations upon the slave trade, curse Britain for having given
them slaves, burn at the stake Negroes convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at
the very mention of human rights as applicable to men of color. The impression produced upon my mind by the progress of this
discussion is that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States is morally and
politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles upon which alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive,
by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master;
and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured
or restored to their owners, and persons not to be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with
nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been that this slave representation has governed the Union.

Benjamin portioned above his brethren has ravined as a wolf. In the morning he has devoured the prey, and at night he has
divided the spoil. It would be no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union under this Constitution,
that almost everything which has contributed to the honor and welfare of the nation has been accomplished in spite of them
or forced upon them, and that everything unpropitious and dishonorable, including the blunders and follies of their adversaries,
may be traced to them.

I have favored this Missouri Compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and
from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to
have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the states to revise and
amend the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States, unpolluted with slavery, with
a great and glorious object to effect; namely, that of rallying to their standard the other states by the universal emancipation
of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the present,
however, this contest is laid asleep.

On Sunday, September 8, in a surprise announcement, President Ford issued a pardon to former President Nixon for "all offenses
against the United States which he . . . has committed or may have committed" while in office. The pardon surprised and shocked
the nation and seriously damaged the President's popularity. The full pardon was contrasted unfavorably with the limited clemency
offer made to Vietnam draft evaders and deserters. Many people suspected that the pardon was the result of a "deal" worked
out before Nixon resigned. To quash such rumors President Ford appeared before a congressional panel on October 17 to affirm
that no prior arrangement had led to the pardon.

The President's Remarks Announcing His Decision to Grant the Pardon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as
soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do.

I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them
do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions.

My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with
my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to
wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong
as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow.

I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best
that I can for America.

I have asked your help and your prayers, not only when I became President but many times since. The Constitution is the supreme
law of our land and it governs our actions as citizens. Only the laws of God, which govern our consciences, are superior to
it.

As we are a Nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched
my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this
place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family.

Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the
end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.

There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter, none that precisely fit the circumstances of
a private citizen who has resigned the Presidency of the United States. But it is common knowledge that serious allegations
and accusations hang like a sword over our former President's head, threatening his health as he tries to reshape his life,
a great part of which was spent in the service of this country and by the mandate of its people.

After years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate, I have been advised, and I am compelled to conclude that many
months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury in any jurisdiction
of the United States under governing decisions of the Supreme Court.

I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. The law, whether human or divine,
is no respecter of persons, but the law is a respecter of reality.

The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other
citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his
innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society.

During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again
be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of Government would again be challenged at home
and abroad.

In the end, the courts might well hold that Richard Nixon had been denied due process, and the verdict of history would even
more be inconclusive with respect to those charges arising out of the period of his Presidency, of which I am presently aware.
But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and
every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country.

In this, I dare not depend upon my personal sympathy as a long-time friend of the former President, nor my professional judgment
as a lawyer, and I do not.

As President, my primary concern must always be the greatest good of all the people of the United States whose servant I am.
As a man, my first consideration is to be true to my own convictions and my own conscience.

My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is
closed. My conscience tells me that only I, as President, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book.

My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to insure
it.

I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.

I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President, but as a humble servant of God, will receive
justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.

Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do,
no matter what we, as a great and good Nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true.

President Roosevelt was a conservationist by nature. An enthusiastic outdoorsman, he also recognized that the industrial transformation
of the United States since the Civil War had made coal, timber, and other natural resources vital to the welfare of the country.
Thus, he supported the work of federally employed civil engineers and foresters. In a special message to Congress on January
22, 1909 (reprinted here in part), he urged the formation of nationally supervised agencies to conserve natural resources.
His proposals included the creation of a Bureau of Mines, as well as the strengthening of the Inland Waterways Commission.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith a report of the National Conservation Commission, together with the accompanying papers. This report,
which is the outgrowth of the Conference of Governors last May, was unanimously approved by the recent joint conference held
in this city between the National Conservation Commission and governors of states, state conservation commissions, and conservation
committees of great organizations of citizens. It is, therefore, in a peculiar sense, representative of the whole nation and
all its parts.

With the statements and conclusions of this report I heartily concur, and I commend it to the thoughtful consideration both
of the Congress and of our people generally. It is one of the most fundamentally important documents ever laid before the
American people. It contains the first inventory of its natural resources ever made by any nation. In condensed form it presents
a statement of our available capital in material resources, which are the means of progress, and calls attention to the essential
conditions upon which the perpetuity, safety, and welfare of this nation now rest and must always continue to rest. It deserves,
and should have, the widest possible distribution among the people. . . .

The National Conservation Commission wisely confined its report to the statement of facts and principles, leaving the Executive
to recommend the specific steps to which these facts and principles inevitably lead. Accordingly, I call your attention to
some of the larger features of the situation disclosed by the report and to the action thereby clearly demanded for the general
good.

WATERS

The report says:

Within recent months it has been recognized and demanded by the people, through many thousand delegates from all states assembled
in convention in different sections of the country, that the waterways should and must be improved promptly and effectively
as a means of maintaining national prosperity.

The first requisite for waterway improvement is the control of the waters in such manner as to reduce floods and regulate
the regimen of the navigable rivers. The second requisite is development of terminals and connection in such manner as to
regulate commerce.

Accordingly, I urge that the broad plan for the development of our waterways recommended by the Inland Waterways Commission
be put in effect without delay. It provides for a comprehensive system of waterway improvement extending to all the uses of
the waters and benefits to be derived from their control, including navigation, the development of power, the extension of
irrigation, the drainage of swamp and overflow lands, the prevention of soil wash, and the purification of streams for water
supply. It proposes to carry out the work by coordinating agencies in the federal departments through the medium of an administrative
commission or board acting in cooperation with the states and other organizations and individual citizens.

The work of waterway development should be undertaken without delay. Meritorious projects in known conformity with the general
outlines of any comprehensive plan should proceed at once. The cost of the whole work should be met by direct appropriation,
if possible, but, if necessary, by the issue of bonds in small denominations.

It is especially important that the development of waterpower should be guarded with the utmost care both by the national
government and by the states in order to protect the people against the upgrowth of monopoly and to insure to them a fair
share in the benefits which will follow the development of this great asset which belongs to the people and should be controlled
by them.

FORESTS

I urge that provision be made for both protection and more rapid development of the national forests. Otherwise, either the increasing use of these forests by the people must be checked or their protection against fire must
be dangerously weakened. If we compare the actual fire damage on similar areas on private and national forest lands during
the past year, the government fire patrol saved commercial timber worth as much as the total cost of caring for all national
forests at the present rate for about ten years.

I especially commend to the Congress the facts presented by the commission as to the relation between forests and stream flow
in its bearing upon the importance of the forest lands in national ownership. Without an understanding of this intimate relation
the conservation of both these natural resources must largely fail.

The time has fully arrived for recognizing in the law the responsibility to the community, the state, and the nation which
rests upon the private owners of private lands. The ownership of forest land is a public trust. The man who would so handle
his forest as to cause erosion and to injure stream flow must be not only educated but he must be controlled.

The report of the National Conservation Commission says:

Forests in private ownership cannot be conserved unless they are protected from fire. We need good fire laws, well-enforced.
Fire control is impossible without an adequate force of men whose sole duty is fire patrol during the dangerous season.

I hold as first among the tasks before the states and the nation in their respective shares in forest conservation the organization
of efficient fire patrols and the enactment of good fire laws on the part of the states.

The report says further:

Present tax laws prevent reforestation of cut-over land and the perpetuation of existing forests by use. An annual tax upon
the land itself, exclusive of the timber, and a tax upon the timber when cut is well-adapted to actual conditions of forest
investment and is practicable and certain. It is far better that forest land should pay a moderate tax permanently than that
it should pay an excessive revenue temporarily and then cease to yield at all.

Second only in importance to good fire laws, well-enforced, is the enactment of tax laws which will permit the perpetuation
of existing forests by use.

LANDS

With our increasing population the time is not far distant when the problem of supplying our people with food will become
pressing. The possible additions to our arable area are not great, and it will become necessary to obtain much larger crops
from the land, as is now done in more densely settled countries. To do this, we need better farm practice and better strains
of wheat, corn, and other crop plants, with a reduction in losses from soil erosion and from insects, animals, and other enemies
of agriculture. The United States Department of Agriculture is doing excellent work in these directions and it should be liberally
supported.

The remaining public lands should be classified and the arable lands disposed of to homemakers. In their interest the Timber
and Stone Act and the commutation clause of the Homestead Act should be repealed, and the Desert-Land Law should be modified
in accordance with the recommendations of the Public Lands Commission.

The use of the public grazing lands should be regulated in such ways as to improve and conserve their value.

Rights to the surface of the public land should be separated from rights to forests upon it and to minerals beneath it, and
these should be subject to separate disposal.

The coal, oil, gas, and phosphate rights still remaining with the government should be withdrawn from entry and leased under
conditions favorable for economic development.

The consumption of nearly all of our mineral products is increasing more rapidly than our population. Our mineral waste is
about one-sixth of our product, or nearly $1 million for each working day in the year. The loss of structural materials through
fire is about another million a day. The loss of life in the mines is appalling. The larger part of these losses of life and
property can be avoided.

Our mineral resources are limited in quantity and cannot be increased or reproduced. With the rapidly increasing rate of consumption,
the supply will be exhausted while yet the nation is in its infancy unless better methods are devised or substitutes are found.
Further investigation is urgently needed in order to improve methods and to develop and apply substitutes.

It is of the utmost importance that a Bureau of Mines be established in accordance with the pending bill to reduce the loss
of life in mines and the waste of mineral resources, and to investigate the methods and substitutes for prolonging the duration
of our mineral supplies. Both the need and the public demand for such a bureau are rapidly becoming more urgent. It should
cooperate with the states in supplying data to serve as a basis for state mine regulations. The establishment of this bureau
will mean merely the transfer from other bureaus of work which it is agreed should be transferred and slightly enlarged and
reorganized for these purposes.

CONCLUSIONS

The joint conference already mentioned adopted two resolutions to which I call your special attention. The first was intended
to promote cooperation between the states and the nation upon all of the great questions here discussed. It is as follows:

Resolved, that a joint committee be appointed by the chairman to consist of six members of state conservation commissions and three
members of the National Conservation Commission, whose duty it shall be to prepare and present to the state and national commissions,
and through them to the governors and the President, a plan for united action by all organizations concerned with the conservation
of natural resources. . . .

The second resolution of the joint conference to which I refer calls upon the Congress to provide the means for such cooperation.
The principle of the community of interest among all our people in the great natural resources runs through the report of
the National Conservation Commission and the proceedings of the joint conference. These resources, which form the common basis
of our welfare, can be wisely developed, rightly used, and prudently conserved only by the common action of all the people
acting through their representatives in state and nation. Hence the fundamental necessity for cooperation. Without it we shall
accomplish but little, and that little badly. The resolution follows:

We also especially urge on the Congress of the United States the high desirability of maintaining a national commission on
the conservation of the resources of the country, empowered to cooperate with state commissions to the end that every sovereign
commonwealth and every section of the country may attain the high degree of prosperity and the sureness of perpetuity naturally
arising in the abundant resources and the vigor, intelligence, and patriotism of our people.

In this recommendation I most heartily concur, and I urge that an appropriation of at least $50,000 be made to cover the expenses
of the National Conservation Commission for necessary rent, assistance, and traveling expenses. This is a very small sum.
I know of no other way in which the appropriation of so small a sum would result in so large a benefit to the whole nation.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 11, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 1416-1426.

When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained between unlimited submission to a
foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable
power of fleets and armies they must determine to resist than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise
concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying,
however, on the purity of their intentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelligence of the people,
under an overruling Providence which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation,
then consisting of little more than half its present number, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging and the
rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.

The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples
which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered.
But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from
the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at
the formation of it that it could not be durable.

Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals
but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences-universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline
of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce,
contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents,
animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity.

In this dangerous crisis the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution,
or integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. The public disquisitions,
discussions, and deliberations issued in the present happy Constitution of Government.

Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I
read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the
genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested.
In its general principles and great outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed,
and in some States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common
with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as
them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It was not
then, nor has been since, any objection to it in my mind that the Executive and Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I
ever entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience,
should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures, according
to the Constitution itself, adopt and ordain.

Returning to the bosom of my country after a painful separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a
station under the new order of things, and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious obligations to support the
Constitution. The operation of it has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends, and from an habitual attention
to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of
the nation I have acquired an habitual attachment to it and veneration for it.

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?

There may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects
in the sight of superior intelligences, but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle
presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been
seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the
branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute
laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes
and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in
remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the
people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate
government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full
proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration
more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when
it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our
liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice
or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that
solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or
venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who
govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have
little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.

Such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which
the people of America have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and virtuous of all nations for eight years
under the administration of a citizen who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance,
and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the same virtues and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of
liberty to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens,
commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity.

In that retirement which is his voluntary choice may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services, the
gratitude of mankind, the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily increasing, and that splendid prospect
of the future fortunes of this country which is opening from year to year. His name may be still a rampart, and the knowledge
that he lives a bulwark, against all open or secret enemies of his country's peace. This example has been recommended to the
imitation of his successors by both Houses of Congress and by the voice of the legislatures and the people throughout the
nation.

On this subject it might become me better to be silent or to speak with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the
occasion, I hope, will be admitted as an apology if I venture to say that if a preference, upon principle, of a free republican
government, formed upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an attachment
to the Constitution of the United States, and a conscientious determination to support it until it shall be altered by the
judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to the constitutions
of the individual States and a constant caution and delicacy toward the State governments; if an equal and impartial regard
to the rights, interest, honor, and happiness of all the States in the Union, without preference or regard to a northern or
southern, an eastern or western, position, their various political opinions on unessential points or their personal attachments;
if a love of virtuous men of all parties and denominations; if a love of science and letters and a wish to patronize every
rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution for propagating knowledge,
virtue, and religion among all classes of the people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life in all
its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our Constitution from its natural
enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence
of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments; if a love of equal laws, of justice, and
humanity in the interior administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers for necessity,
convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity toward the aboriginal nations of America, and a disposition to
meliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an
inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, and that system of neutrality and impartiality
among the belligerent powers of Europe which has been adopted by this Government and so solemnly sanctioned by both Houses
of Congress and applauded by the legislatures of the States and the public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by
Congress; if a personal esteem for the French nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere
desire to preserve the friendship which has been so much for the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious
honor and integrity of the people of America and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved,
an earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause and remove every colorable pretense of complaint; if an intention to pursue
by amicable negotiation a reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens by whatever
nation, and if success can not be obtained, to lay the facts before the Legislature, that they may consider what further measures
the honor and interest of the Government and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice as far as may depend upon
me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken confidence
in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived;
if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral
principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted
by experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people
who profess and call themselves Christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for Christianity among the
best recommendations for the public service, can enable me in any degree to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous
endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two Houses shall not be without effect.

With this great example before me, with the sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest, of the same American
people pledged to support the Constitution of the United States, I entertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy,
and my mind is prepared without hesitation to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of
my power.

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of
the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success
and duration consistent with the ends of His providence.

The speech by Abraham Lincoln to the Republican State Convention at Springfield, Illinois, on June 16, 1858, launched his
campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas replied less than a month later at Chicago, after which the two men sparred in their famous series of debates. Lincoln's
speech was considered radical at the time and potentially dangerous. His former law partner, William H. Herndon, predicted,
however, that the Republicans would eventually make him President. The challenge of Lincoln's "House Divided" speech was met
by Douglas in his July 9 Chicago address, which began his campaign for reelection. Douglas was committed to the idea of "popular
sovereignty" in opposition to the Republicans, who wished to exclude slavery from the territories. He also had to satisfy the Southern wing in his own Democratic Party, which wanted unlimited extension
of slavery.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention:

If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are
now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to
slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot
stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved;
I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful
in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let anyone who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination -- piece of machinery, so to speak
-- compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider, not only what work the machinery is
adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also let him study the history of its construction and trace, if he can, or rather
fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the states by state constitutions and from most of the national
territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional
prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery and was the first point gained.

But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an endorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and give
chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter
sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful
basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the language which follows:

It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom,
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States.

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter sovereignty" and "sacred right of self-government." "But,"
said opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery."
"Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case, involving the question of a Negro's freedom, by reason of
his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then into a territory covered by the congressional prohibition,
and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court for the district of Missouri;
and both Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May 1854. The Negro's name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next presidential election, the law case
came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election.
Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill
to state his opinion whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter
answers: "That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the endorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained.
The endorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly 400,000 votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly
reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon
the people the weight and authority of the endorsement. The Supreme Court met again, did not announce their decision, but
ordered a reargument.

The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the Court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural address,
fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital endorsing the Dred Scott
decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman
letter to endorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been
entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton constitution was or was not in any just sense made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the
latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration, that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other
than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind -- the principle for which he declares he has
suffered so much and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle! If he has any parental feeling,
well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine.

Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding;
like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an election and then
was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton constitution involves nothing
of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point -- the right of a people to make their own constitution
-- upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas' "care not" policy, constitute the piece
of machinery in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are:

First, that no Negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave can ever be a citizen of any state
in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the Negro,
in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares that "the citizens
of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

Second, that, "subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude
slavery from any United States territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the territories with
slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all
the future.

Third, that whether the holding a Negro in actual slavery in a free state makes him free, as against the holder, the United
States courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave state the Negro may be forced into
by the master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately but, if acquiesced in for awhile, and apparently endorsed
by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with
Dred Scott in the free state of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one, or 1,000 slaves, in Illinois
or in any other free state.

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mold
public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly
where we now are; and partially, also, whither we are tending.

It will throw additional light on the latter to go back and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated.
Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left
"perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see.
Plainly enough, now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in and declare the perfect
freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all.

Why was the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people voted down? Plainly enough, now, the adoption of it would
have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the Court decision held up? Why even a senator's individual opinion
withheld till after the presidential election? Plainly enough, now, the speaking out then would have damaged the "perfectly
free" argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the endorsement? Why
the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like
the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him when it is dreaded that he may give the rider
a fall. And why the hasty after-endorsement of the decision by the President and others?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers,
different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen -- Stephen,
Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance -- and when we see these timbers joined together and see they exactly make the frame
of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces
exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding, or, if a single
piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in -- in such a case,
we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning,
and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.

When we assembled here on the 4th of March, 1897, there was great anxiety with regard to our currency and credit. None exists
now. Then our Treasury receipts were inadequate to meet the current obligations of the Government. Now they are sufficient
for all public needs, and we have a surplus instead of a deficit. Then I felt constrained to convene the Congress in extraordinary
session to devise revenues to pay the ordinary expenses of the Government. Now I have the satisfaction to announce that the
Congress just closed has reduced taxation in the sum of $41,000,000. Then there was deep solicitude because of the long depression
in our manufacturing, mining, agricultural, and mercantile industries and the consequent distress of our laboring population.
Now every avenue of production is crowded with activity, labor is well employed, and American products find good markets at
home and abroad.

Our diversified productions, however, are increasing in such unprecedented volume as to admonish us of the necessity of still
further enlarging our foreign markets by broader commercial relations. For this purpose reciprocal trade arrangements with
other nations should in liberal spirit be carefully cultivated and promoted.

The national verdict of 1896 has for the most part been executed. Whatever remains unfulfilled is a continuing obligation
resting with undiminished force upon the Executive and the Congress. But fortunate as our condition is, its permanence can
only be assured by sound business methods and strict economy in national administration and legislation. We should not permit
our great prosperity to lead us to reckless ventures in business or profligacy in public expenditures. While the Congress
determines the objects and the sum of appropriations, the officials of the executive departments are responsible for honest
and faithful disbursement, and it should be their constant care to avoid waste and extravagance.

Honesty, capacity, and industry are nowhere more indispensable than in public employment. These should be fundamental requisites
to original appointment and the surest guaranties against removal.

Four years ago we stood on the brink of war without the people knowing it and without any preparation or effort at preparation
for the impending peril. I did all that in honor could be done to avert the war, but without avail. It became inevitable;
and the Congress at its first regular session, without party division, provided money in anticipation of the crisis and in
preparation to meet it. It came. The result was signally favorable to American arms and in the highest degree honorable to
the Government. It imposed upon us obligations from which we cannot escape and from which it would be dishonorable to seek
escape. We are now at peace with the world, and it is my fervent prayer that if differences arise between us and other powers
they may be settled by peaceful arbitration and that hereafter we may be spared the horrors of war.

Intrusted by the people for a second time with the office of President, I enter upon its administration appreciating the great
responsibilities which attach to this renewed honor and commission, promising unreserved devotion on my part to their faithful
discharge and reverently invoking for my guidance the direction and favor of Almighty God. I should shrink from the duties
this day assumed if I did not feel that in their performance I should have the co-operation of the wise and patriotic men
of all parties. It encourages me for the great task which I now undertake to believe that those who voluntarily committed
to me the trust imposed upon the Chief Executive of the Republic will give to me generous support in my duties to "preserve,
protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States" and to "care that the laws be faithfully executed." The national
purpose is indicated through a national election. It is the constitutional method of ascertaining the public will. When once
it is registered it is a law to us all, and faithful observance should follow its decrees.

Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and, fortunately, we have them in every part of our beloved country. We are reunited.
Sectionalism has disappeared. Division on public questions can no longer be traced by the war maps of 1861. These old differences
less and less disturb the judgment. Existing problems demand the thought and quicken the conscience of the country, and the
responsibility for their presence, as well as for their righteous settlement, rests upon us all-no more upon me than upon
you. There are some national questions in the solution of which patriotism should exclude partisanship. Magnifying their difficulties
will not take them off our hands nor facilitate their adjustment. Distrust of the capacity, integrity, and high purposes of
the American people will not be an inspiring theme for future political contests. Dark pictures and gloomy forebodings are
worse than useless. These only becloud, they do not help to point the way of safety and honor. "Hope maketh not ashamed."
The prophets of evil were not the builders of the Republic, nor in its crises since have they saved or served it. The faith
of the fathers was a mighty force in its creation, and the faith of their descendants has wrought its progress and furnished
its defenders. They are obstructionists who despair, and who would destroy confidence in the ability of our people to solve
wisely and for civilization the mighty problems resting upon them. The American people, intrenched in freedom at home, take
their love for it with them wherever they go, and they reject as mistaken and unworthy the doctrine that we lose our own liberties
by securing the enduring foundations of liberty to others. Our institutions will not deteriorate by extension, and our sense
of justice will not abate under tropic suns in distant seas. As heretofore, so hereafter will the nation demonstrate its fitness
to administer any new estate which events devolve upon it, and in the fear of God will "take occasion by the hand and make
the bounds of freedom wider yet." If there are those among us who would make our way more difficult, we must not be disheartened,
but the more earnestly dedicate ourselves to the task upon which we have rightly entered. The path of progress is seldom smooth.
New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. They are inconvenient. They cost us something.
But are we not made better for the effort and sacrifice, and are not those we serve lifted up and blessed?

We will be consoled, too, with the fact that opposition has confronted every onward movement of the Republic from its opening
hour until now, but without success. The Republic has marched on and on, and its step has exalted freedom and humanity. We
are undergoing the same ordeal as did our predecessors nearly a century ago. We are following the course they blazed. They
triumphed. Will their successors falter and plead organic impotency in the nation? Surely after 125 years of achievement for
mankind we will not now surrender our equality with other powers on matters fundamental and essential to nationality. With
no such purpose was the nation created. In no such spirit has it developed its full and independent sovereignty. We adhere
to the principle of equality among ourselves, and by no act of ours will we assign to ourselves a subordinate rank in the
family of nations.

My fellow-citizens, the public events of the past four years have gone into history. They are too near to justify recital.
Some of them were unforeseen; many of them momentous and far-reaching in their consequences to ourselves and our relations
with the rest of the world. The part which the United States bore so honorably in the thrilling scenes in China, while new
to American life, has been in harmony with its true spirit and best traditions, and in dealing with the results its policy
will be that of moderation and fairness.

We face at this moment a most important question that of the future relations of the United States and Cuba. With our near
neighbors we must remain close friends. The declaration of the purposes of this Government in the resolution of April 20,
1898, must be made good. Ever since the evacuation of the island by the army of Spain, the Executive, with all practicable
speed, has been assisting its people in the successive steps necessary to the establishment of a free and independent government
prepared to assume and perform the obligations of international law which now rest upon the United States under the treaty
of Paris. The convention elected by the people to frame a constitution is approaching the completion of its labors. The transfer
of American control to the new government is of such great importance, involving an obligation resulting from our intervention
and the treaty of peace, that I am glad to be advised by the recent act of Congress of the policy which the legislative branch
of the Government deems essential to the best interests of Cuba and the United States. The principles which led to our intervention
require that the fundamental law upon which the new government rests should be adapted to secure a government capable of performing
the duties and discharging the functions of a separate nation, of observing its international obligations of protecting life
and property, insuring order, safety, and liberty, and conforming to the established and historical policy of the United States
in its relation to Cuba.

The peace which we are pledged to leave to the Cuban people must carry with it the guaranties of permanence. We became sponsors
for the pacification of the island, and we remain accountable to the Cubans, no less than to our own country and people, for
the reconstruction of Cuba as a free commonwealth on abiding foundations of right, justice, liberty, and assured order. Our
enfranchisement of the people will not be completed until free Cuba shall "be a reality, not a name; a perfect entity, not
a hasty experiment bearing within itself the elements of failure."

While the treaty of peace with Spain was ratified on the 6th of February, 1899, and ratifications were exchanged nearly two
years ago, the Congress has indicated no form of government for the Philippine Islands. It has, however, provided an army
to enable the Executive to suppress insurrection, restore peace, give security to the inhabitants, and establish the authority
of the United States throughout the archipelago. It has authorized the organization of native troops as auxiliary to the regular
force. It has been advised from time to time of the acts of the military and naval officers in the islands, of my action in
appointing civil commissions, of the instructions with which they were charged, of their duties and powers, of their recommendations,
and of their several acts under executive commission, together with the very complete general information they have submitted.
These reports fully set forth the conditions, past and present, in the islands, and the instructions clearly show the principles
which will guide the Executive until the Congress shall, as it is required to do by the treaty, determine "the civil rights
and political status of the native inhabitants." The Congress having added the sanction of its authority to the powers already
possessed and exercised by the Executive under the Constitution, thereby leaving with the Executive the responsibility for
the government of the Philippines, I shall continue the efforts already begun until order shall be restored throughout the
islands, and as fast as conditions permit will establish local governments, in the formation of which the full co-operation
of the people has been already invited, and when established will encourage the people to administer them. The settled purpose,
long ago proclaimed, to afford the inhabitants of the islands self-government as fast as they were ready for it will be pursued
with earnestness and fidelity. Already something has been accomplished in this direction. The Government's representatives,
civil and military, are doing faithful and noble work in their mission of emancipation and merit the approval and support
of their countrymen. The most liberal terms of amnesty have already been communicated to the insurgents, and the way is still
open for those who have raised their arms against the Government for honorable submission to its authority. Our countrymen
should not be deceived. We are not waging war against the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. A portion of them are making
war against the United States. By far the greater part of the inhabitants recognize American sovereignty and welcome it as
a guaranty of order and of security for life, property, liberty, freedom of conscience, and the pursuit of happiness. To them
full protection will be given. They shall not be abandoned. We will not leave the destiny of the loyal millions the [of] islands
to the disloyal thousands who are in rebellion against the United States. Order under civil institutions will come as soon
as those who now break the peace shall keep it. Force will not be needed or used when those who make war against us shall
make it no more. May it end without further bloodshed, and there be ushered in the reign of peace to be made permanent by
a government of liberty under law!

Several church bodies, notably Catholics and Lutherans, developed extensive systems of parochial education in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. The parochial school was based on the conviction that "secular" education was inadequate, even dangerous, for children of church affiliation.
The churches that were engaged in education argued that they had a right to some of the public funds that were devoted to
schools. Bishops Michael Corrigan of Newark and John Ireland of St. Paul both actively sought public funds for Catholic schools.
In Illinois, it was feared that the combined vote of the Catholic and Lutheran electorate would endanger the very existence
of the public school system. With such issues as these in mind, President Grant made the following remarks at Des Moines,
Iowa, in 1876.

I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics, but it is a fair subject for soldiers in their
deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours; where
the citizen is the sovereign and the official the servant; where no power is exercised except by the will of the people. It
is important that the sovereign, the people, should foster intelligence and the promoter of that intelligence which is to
preserve us as a nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future for our national existence, I predict that the
dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's line but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition,
ambition, and ignorance on the other.

Now, the centennial year of our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundations
of the structure commenced by our patriotic fathers a hundred years ago at Lexington. Let us labor to add all needful guarantees
for the greater security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and equal
rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion. Encourage free schools and resolve that
not one dollar of the money appropriated to their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school; that
neither the state or nation, not both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford
to every child in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical
dogma.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and private schools entirely supported by private contributions.
Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee
will not have been fought in vain.

On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.

In Washington's day the task of the people was to create and weld together a nation.

In Lincoln's day the task of the people was to preserve that Nation from disruption from within.

In this day the task of the people is to save that Nation and its institutions from disruption from without.

To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock-to recall what our place
in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.

Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score
years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live.

There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of Government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for
some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future-and that freedom is an ebbing tide.

But we Americans know that this is not true.

Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We
were in the midst of shock-but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.

These later years have been living years-fruitful years for the people of this democracy. For they have brought to us greater
security and, I hope, a better understanding that life's ideals are to be measured in other than material things.

Most vital to our present and our future is this experience of a democracy which successfully survived crisis at home; put
away many evil things; built new structures on enduring lines; and, through it all, maintained the fact of its democracy.

For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches
of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained.
Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions come to naught.

Democracy is not dying.

We know it because we have seen it revive-and grow.

We know it cannot die-because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common
enterprise-an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.

We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.

We know it because democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement
of human life.

We know it because, if we look below the surface, we sense it still spreading on every continent-for it is the most humane,
the most advanced, and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society.

A nation, like a person, has a body-a body that must be fed and clothed and housed, invigorated and rested, in a manner that
measures up to the objectives of our time.

A nation, like a person, has a mind-a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the
hopes and the needs of its neighbors-all the other nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world.

And a nation, like a person, has something deeper, something more permanent, something larger than the sum of all its parts.
It is that something which matters most to its future-which calls forth the most sacred guarding of its present.

It is a thing for which we find it difficult-even impossible-to hit upon a single, simple word.

And yet we all understand what it is-the spirit-the faith of America. It is the product of centuries. It was born in the multitudes
of those who came from many lands-some of high degree, but mostly plain people, who sought here, early and late, to find freedom
more freely.

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of
early peoples. It blazed anew in the middle ages. It was written in Magna Charta.

In the Americas its impact has been irresistible. America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because
this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a
new life-a life that should be new in freedom.

Its vitality was written into our own Mayflower Compact, into the Declaration of Independence, into the Constitution of the
United States, into the Gettysburg Address.

Those who first came here to carry out the longings of their spirit, and the millions who followed, and the stock that sprang
from them-all have moved forward constantly and consistently toward an ideal which in itself has gained stature and clarity
with each generation.

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of
every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land.

But it is not enough to achieve these purposes alone. It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of this Nation, and instruct
and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit. And of the three, the greatest is the spirit.

Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live.

But if the spirit of America were killed, even though the Nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien world, lived on,
the America we know would have perished.

That spirit-that faith-speaks to us in our daily lives in ways often unnoticed, because they seem so obvious. It speaks to
us here in the Capital of the Nation. It speaks to us through the processes of governing in the sovereignties of 48 States.
It speaks to us in our counties, in our cities, in our towns, and in our villages. It speaks to us from the other nations
of the hemisphere, and from those across the seas-the enslaved, as well as the free. Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these
voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story.

The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first inaugural in 1789-words
almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the
republican model of government are justly considered . . . deeply, . . . finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the
hands of the American people."

If we lose that sacred fire-if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear-then we shall reject the destiny which Washington
strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will,
furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense.

In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of
democracy.

For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.

We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will
of God.

Francis Walker Gilmer, a lawyer and author, was one of Jefferson's numerous correspondents in the years after 1812. In the
following letter to Gilmer of June 7, 1816, Jefferson discoursed on the extent to which natural rights must be relinquished
in civil society, and expressed his profound disagreement with the Hobbesian view that justice is conventional only, and not
natural. The letter reflected Jefferson's abiding faith in Republican government, the main if not the sole function of which
was, in his view, to preserve those rights that man has, ideally, in the state of nature.

I received a few days ago from Mr. Du Pont the enclosed manuscript, with permission to read it, and a request, when read,
to forward it to you, in expectation that you would translate it. It is well worthy of publication for the instruction of
our citizens, being profound, sound, and short.

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare
and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression
on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. Every man is under the natural
duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him. And, no man having
a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial
third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded
that on entering into society we give up any natural right. The trial of every law by one of these texts would lessen much
the labors of our legislators, and lighten equally our municipal codes.

There is a work of the first order of merit . . . by Destutt Tracy on the subject of political economy. . . . In a preliminary
discourse on the origin of the right of property, he coincides much with the principles of the present manuscript; but is
more developed, more demonstrative. He promises a future work on morals, in which I lament to see that he will adopt the principles
of Hobbes, or humiliation to human nature; that the sense of justice and injustice is not derived from our natural organization
but founded on convention only. I lament this the more as he is unquestionably the ablest writer living, on abstract subjects.

Assuming the fact that the earth has been created in time, and, consequently, the dogma of final causes, we yield, of course,
to this short syllogism. Man was created for social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained without a sense
of justice; then man must have been created with a sense of justice.

There is an error into which most of the speculators on government have fallen, and which the well-known state of society
of our Indians ought, before now, to have corrected. In their hypothesis of the origin of government, they suppose it to have
commenced in the patriarchal or monarchical form. Our Indians are evidently in that state of nature which has passed the association
of a single family; and not yet submitted to the authority of positive laws, or of any acknowledged magistrate. Every man,
with them, is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations. But if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another, if
the case be slight, he is punished by the disesteem of his society, or, as we say, by public opinion; if serious, he is tomahawked
as a dangerous enemy. Their leaders conduct them by the influence of their character only; and they follow or not, as they
please, him of whose character for wisdom or war they have the highest opinion. Hence the origin of the parties among them
adhering to different leaders, and governed by their advice, not by their command.

The Cherokees, the only tribe I know to be contemplating the establishment of regular laws, magistrates, and government, propose
a government of representatives, elected from every town. But of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to
the will of one man. This, the only instance of actual fact within our knowledge, will be then a beginning by republican,
and not by patriarchal or monarchical government, as speculative writers have generally conjectured.

In compliance with an usage coeval with the existence of our Federal Constitution, and sanctioned by the example of my predecessors in the career upon which I am about to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens,
in your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of religious obligation to the faithful performance
of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.

In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be governed in the fulfillment of those duties my first resort
will be to that Constitution which I shall swear to the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend. That revered
instrument enumerates the powers and prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate, and in its first words declares the
purposes to which these and the whole action of the Government instituted by it should be invariably and sacredly devoted-to
form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to the people of this Union in their successive generations. Since the adoption
of this social compact one of these generations has passed away. It is the work of our forefathers. Administered by some of
the most eminent men who contributed to its formation, through a most eventful period in the annals of the world, and through
all the vicissitudes of peace and war incidental to the condition of associated man, it has not disappointed the hopes and
aspirations of those illustrious benefactors of their age and nation. It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country
so dear to us all; it has to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of humanity secured the freedom and happiness of this people.
We now receive it as a precious inheritance from those to whom we are indebted for its establishment, doubly bound by the
examples which they have left us and by the blessings which we have enjoyed as the fruits of their labors to transmit the
same unimpaired to the succeeding generation.

In the compass of thirty-six years since this great national covenant was instituted a body of laws enacted under its authority
and in conformity with its provisions has unfolded its powers and carried into practical operation its effective energies.
Subordinate departments have distributed the executive functions in their various relations to foreign affairs, to the revenue
and expenditures, and to the military force of the Union by land and sea. A coordinate department of the judiciary has expounded
the Constitution and the laws, settling in harmonious coincidence with the legislative will numerous weighty questions of
construction which the imperfection of human language had rendered unavoidable. The year of jubilee since the first formation
of our Union has just elapsed; that of the declaration of our independence is at hand. The consummation of both was effected
by this Constitution.

Since that period a population of four millions has multiplied to twelve. A territory bounded by the Mississippi has been
extended from sea to sea. New States have been admitted to the Union in numbers nearly equal to those of the first Confederation.
Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of the earth. The people of other
nations, inhabitants of regions acquired not by conquest, but by compact, have been united with us in the participation of
our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings. The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen; the soil has been made
to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has
been extended by the invention of our artists. Liberty and law have marched hand in hand. All the purposes of human association
have been accomplished as effectively as under any other government on the globe, and at a cost little exceeding in a whole
generation the expenditure of other nations in a single year.

Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condition under a Constitution founded upon the republican principle of equal rights.
To admit that this picture has its shades is but to say that it is still the condition of men upon earth. From evil-physical,
moral, and political-it is not our claim to be exempt. We have suffered sometimes by the visitation of Heaven through disease;
often by the wrongs and injustice of other nations, even to the extremities of war; and, lastly, by dissensions among ourselves-dissensions
perhaps inseparable from the enjoyment of freedom, but which have more than once appeared to threaten the dissolution of the
Union, and with it the overthrow of all the enjoyments of our present lot and all our earthly hopes of the future. The causes
of these dissensions have been various, founded upon differences of speculation in the theory of republican government; upon
conflicting views of policy in our relations with foreign nations; upon jealousies of partial and sectional interests, aggravated
by prejudices and prepossessions which strangers to each other are ever apt to entertain.

It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe that the great result of this experiment upon the theory
of human rights has at the close of that generation by which it was formed been crowned with success equal to the most sanguine
expectations of its founders. Union, justice, tranquillity, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of
liberty-all have been promoted by the Government under which we have lived. Standing at this point of time, looking back to
that generation which has gone by and forward to that which is advancing, we may at once indulge in grateful exultation and
in cheering hope. From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future. Of the two great political
parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have
contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration
of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary
wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the Government of the United States first went into operation under
this Constitution, excited a collision of sentiments and of sympathies which kindled all the passions and imbittered the conflict
of parties till the nation was involved in war and the Union was shaken to its center. This time of trial embraced a period
of five and twenty years, during which the policy of the Union in its relations with Europe constituted the principal basis
of our political divisions and the most arduous part of the action of our Federal Government. With the catastrophe in which
the wars of the French Revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of party
strife was uprooted. From that time no difference of principle, connected either with the theory of government or with our
intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in force sufficient to sustain a continued combination
of parties or to give more than wholesome animation to public sentiment or legislative debate. Our political creed is, without
a dissenting voice that can be heard, that the will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of
all legitimate government upon earth; that the best security for the beneficence and the best guaranty against the abuse of
power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections; that the General Government of the Union
and the separate governments of the States are all sovereignties of limited powers, fellow-servants of the same masters, uncontrolled
within their respective spheres, uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other; that the firmest security of peace is the
preparation during peace of the defenses of war; that a rigorous economy and accountability of public expenditures should
guard against the aggravation and alleviate when possible the burden of taxation; that the military should be kept in strict
subordination to the civil power; that the freedom of the press and of religious opinion should be inviolate; that the policy
of our country is peace and the ark of our salvation union are articles of faith upon which we are all now agreed. If there
have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly
management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled; if there have been projects of partial
confederacies to be erected upon the ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds; if there have been dangerous
attachments to one foreign nation and antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace, at home
and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of
public opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals
throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant
of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence
which in times of contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.

The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative opinions or in different views of administrative policy are
in their nature transitory. Those which are founded on geographical divisions, adverse interests of soil, climate, and modes
of domestic life are more permanent, and therefore, perhaps, more dangerous. It is this which gives inestimable value to the
character of our Government, at once federal and national. It holds out to us a perpetual admonition to preserve alike and
with equal anxiety the rights of each individual State in its own government and the rights of the whole nation in that of
the Union. Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, unconnected with the other members of the Union or with foreign lands, belongs
exclusively to the administration of the State governments. Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests of the federative
fraternity or of foreign powers is of the resort of this General Government. The duties of both are obvious in the general
principle, though sometimes perplexed with difficulties in the detail. To respect the rights of the State governments is the
inviolable duty of that of the Union; the government of every State will feel its own obligation to respect and preserve the
rights of the whole. The prejudices everywhere too commonly entertained against distant strangers are worn away, and the jealousies
of jarring interests are allayed by the composition and functions of the great national councils annually assembled from all
quarters of the Union at this place. Here the distinguished men from every section of our country, while meeting to deliberate
upon the great interests of those by whom they are deputed, learn to estimate the talents and do justice to the virtues of
each other. The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect,
the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts
in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

Passing from this general review of the purposes and injunctions of the Federal Constitution and their results as indicating
the first traces of the path of duty in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to the Administration of my immediate predecessor
as the second. It has passed away in a period of profound peace, how much to the satisfaction of our country and to the honor
of our country's name is known to you all. The great features of its policy, in general concurrence with the will of the Legislature,
have been to cherish peace while preparing for defensive war; to yield exact justice to other nations and maintain the rights
of our own; to cherish the principles of freedom and of equal rights wherever they were proclaimed; to discharge with all
possible promptitude the national debt; to reduce within the narrowest limits of efficiency the military force; to improve
the organization and discipline of the Army; to provide and sustain a school of military science; to extend equal protection
to all the great interests of the nation; to promote the civilization of the Indian tribes, and to proceed in the great system
of internal improvements within the limits of the constitutional power of the Union. Under the pledge of these promises, made
by that eminent citizen at the time of his first induction to this office, in his career of eight years the internal taxes
have been repealed; sixty millions of the public debt have been discharged; provision has been made for the comfort and relief
of the aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of the Revolution; the regular armed force has been reduced and its
constitution revised and perfected; the accountability for the expenditure of public moneys has been made more effective;
the Floridas have been peaceably acquired, and our boundary has been extended to the Pacific Ocean; the independence of the
southern nations of this hemisphere has been recognized, and recommended by example and by counsel to the potentates of Europe;
progress has been made in the defense of the country by fortifications and the increase of the Navy, toward the effectual
suppression of the African traffic in slaves; in alluring the aboriginal hunters of our land to the cultivation of the soil
and of the mind, in exploring the interior regions of the Union, and in preparing by scientific researches and surveys for
the further application of our national resources to the internal improvement of our country.

In this brief outline of the promise and performance of my immediate predecessor the line of duty for his successor is clearly
delineated. To pursue to their consummation those purposes of improvement in our common condition instituted or recommended
by him will embrace the whole sphere of my obligations. To the topic of internal improvement, emphatically urged by him at
his inauguration, I recur with peculiar satisfaction. It is that from which I am convinced that the unborn millions of our
posterity who are in future ages to people this continent will derive their most fervent gratitude to the founders of the
Union; that in which the beneficent action of its Government will be most deeply felt and acknowledged. The magnificence and
splendor of their public works are among the imperishable glories of the ancient republics. The roads and aqueducts of Rome
have been the admiration of all after ages, and have survived thousands of years after all her conquests have been swallowed
up in despotism or become the spoil of barbarians. Some diversity of opinion has prevailed with regard to the powers of Congress
for legislation upon objects of this nature. The most respectful deference is due to doubts originating in pure patriotism
and sustained by venerated authority. But nearly twenty years have passed since the construction of the first national road
was commenced. The authority for its construction was then unquestioned. To how many thousands of our countrymen has it proved
a benefit? To what single individual has it ever proved an injury? Repeated, liberal, and candid discussions in the Legislature
have conciliated the sentiments and approximated the opinions of enlightened minds upon the question of constitutional power.
I can not but hope that by the same process of friendly, patient, and persevering deliberation all constitutional objections
will ultimately be removed. The extent and limitation of the powers of the General Government in relation to this transcendently
important interest will be settled and acknowledged to the common satisfaction of all, and every speculative scruple will
be solved by a practical public blessing.

Fellow-citizens, you are acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of the recent election, which have resulted in affording
me the opportunity of addressing you at this time. You have heard the exposition of the principles which will direct me in
the fulfillment of the high and solemn trust imposed upon me in this station. Less possessed of your confidence in advance
than any of my predecessors, I am deeply conscious of the prospect that I shall stand more and oftener in need of your indulgence.
Intentions upright and pure, a heart devoted to the welfare of our country, and the unceasing application of all the faculties
allotted to me to her service are all the pledges that I can give for the faithful performance of the arduous duties I am
to undertake. To the guidance of the legislative councils, to the assistance of the executive and subordinate departments,
to the friendly cooperation of the respective State governments, to the candid and liberal support of the people so far as
it may be deserved by honest industry and zeal, I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing
that "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling
providence I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.

There is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the people,
but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer of the nation
that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been
called to witness the solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a mutual covenant. The officer
covenants to serve the whole body of the people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defense
and security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall
be able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness.

My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The people of every State have here their representatives.
Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and
with each other to-day to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all
the laws and each to every other citizen his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly into covenant with each
other, we may reverently invoke and confidently expect the favor and help of Almighty God-that He will give to me wisdom,
strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity and a love of righteousness and peace.

This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth
under our Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took place in New York, where Congress was then sitting,
on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays attending the organization of the Congress and the
canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of Independence,
of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution
of the second great department of our constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of the judicial
department, by the organization of the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be, our nation
will have fully entered its second century.

I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great part happy contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold
into its second century of organized existence under the Constitution and that weak but wisely ordered young nation that looked
undauntedly down the first century, when all its years stretched out before it.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution,
or to find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington and his great associates, and hope and courage
in the contrast which thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to the thirteen States, weak in everything except
courage and the love of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic seaboard.

The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the original States (except Virginia) and greater than the
aggregate of five of the smaller States in 1790. The center of population when our national capital was located was east of
Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that it would move eastward rather than westward; yet in 1880 it
was found to be near Cincinnati, and the new census about to be taken will show another stride to the westward. That which
was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the nation's robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory, population
and aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been in each of those directions. The masses of our people are better fed, clothed,
and housed than their fathers were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly enlarged and more generally diffused.

The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts
and over the lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity
have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not
all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But on the whole the opportunities
offered to the individual to secure the comforts of life are better than are found elsewhere and largely better than they
were here one hundred years ago.

The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was
not accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced by the more imperative voice of experience. The
divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect union." The merchant, the shipmaster, and the manufacturer
discovered and disclosed to our statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be added to the political freedom
which had been so bravely won. The commercial policy of the mother country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive
features. To hold in check the development of our commercial marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of
manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for their shops and the carrying trade for their ships, was
the policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish vigor.

Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of discriminating duties that should encourage the production of needed
things at home. The patriotism of the people, which no longer found afield of exercise in war, was energetically directed
to the duty of equipping the young Republic for the defense of its independence by making its people self-dependent. Societies
for the promotion of home manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of the people were organized
in many of the States. The revival at the end of the century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation and development
of domestic industries and the defense of our working people against injurious foreign competition is an incident worthy of
attention. It is not a departure but a return that we have witnessed. The protective policy had then its opponents. The argument
was made, as now, that its benefits inured to particular classes or sections.

If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it was only because slavery existed in some of the States. But
for this there was no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have led or walked abreast with the New England States
in the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason only why the States that divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures
of the great southeastern and central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in bringing to the smelting furnace and to
the mill the coal and iron from their near opposing hillsides. Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of slavery. The
emancipation proclamation was heard in the depths of the earth as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things
became our better servants.

The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily
only planting States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people which brings wealth
and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is spun in the country town by operatives
whose necessities call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products. Every new mine,
furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice
that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hopefully to the
continuance of our protective system and to the consequent development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the States
hitherto wholly given to agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who have invested
their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in shop
or field will not fail to find and to defend a community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently
been established in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of race, is needed
for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of
Clay and the constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions they would not
find it difficult, by friendly instruction and cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only
in establishing correct principles in our national administration, but in preserving for their local communities the benefits
of social order and economical and honest government. At least until the good offices of kindness and education have been
fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not be plausibly urged.

I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive policy for any section of our country. It is the duty of
the Executive to administer and enforce in the methods and by the instrumentalities pointed out and provided by the Constitution
all the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general and their administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen
may not elect what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive eject which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute
embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting individuals,
corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of
danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations
or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection,
and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to
complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The community that
by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severed
the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practice
it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose breast
that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods,
if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.

An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community
either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they
expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned
by the ignorant classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is
the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor.

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying
for citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive and often
an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of
citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties
so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him
of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character
of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat
to social order. These should be identified and excluded.

We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators
of their contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace, but never obtruding our
advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have
a just right to expect that our European policy will be the American policy of European courts.

It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety which all the great powers habitually observe
and enforce in matters affecting them that a shorter waterway between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated
by any European Government that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.

We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to maintain and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great
powers, but they will not expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave us subject to the dangers of a hostile
observation or environment. We have not sought to dominate or to absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and
encourage them to establish free and stable governments resting upon the consent of their own people. We have a clear right
to expect, therefore, that no European Government will seek to establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these
independent American States. That which a sense of justice restrains us from seeking they may be reasonably expected willingly
to forego.

It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so exclusively American that our entire inattention to any events
that may transpire elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our citizens domiciled for purposes of trade in all countries and in
many of the islands of the sea demand and will have our adequate care in their personal and commercial rights. The necessities
of our Navy require convenient coaling stations and dock and harbor privileges. These and other trading privileges we will
feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any degree partake of coercion, however feeble the government from which
we ask such concessions. But having fairly obtained them by methods and for purposes entirely consistent with the most friendly
disposition toward all other powers, our consent will be necessary to any modification or impairment of the concession.

We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation or the just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like
treatment for our own. Calmness, justice, and consideration should characterize our diplomacy. The offices of an intelligent
diplomacy or of friendly arbitration in proper cases should be adequate to the peaceful adjustment of all international difficulties.
By such methods we will make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation values more highly, and avoid the opprobrium
which must fall upon the nation that ruthlessly breaks it.

The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint
all public officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of Congress has become very
burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge of
any large number of the applicants is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of others, and these are
often made inconsiderately and without any just sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those who
volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty
and an ambition to improve the service should characterize all public officers.

There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of those who have business with our public offices may be promoted
by a thoughtful and obliging officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to justify their selection by a conspicuous
efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification
for public office, but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency.
It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated
with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent
importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads of Departments, bureaus, and all
other public officers having any duty connected therewith will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and without
evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something more to advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal, or even
my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall not, however,
I am sure, be able to put our civil service upon a nonpartisan basis until we have secured an incumbency that fair-minded
men of the opposition will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in the civil list is increased removals
from office will diminish.

While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary
annual demands upon our Treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but scarcely less imperative demands which
arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with economy and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy,
or favoritism in public expenditures is criminal. But there is nothing in the condition of our country or of our people to
suggest that anything presently necessary to the public prosperity, security, or honor should be unduly postponed.

It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our
ordinary expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual surplus will remain. We will fortunately
be able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any small and unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce
our income below our necessary expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of our revenue laws and an increase
of the public debt. It is quite possible, I am sure, to effect the necessary reduction in our revenues without breaking down
our protective tariff or seriously injuring any domestic industry.

The construction of a sufficient number of modern war ships and of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as
is consistent with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and
seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list.
That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the
risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should encourage the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges
of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of communication, and until these are provided the development of our
trade with the States lying south of us is impossible.

Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating relief to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows
and orphans. Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their valor and sacrifice.

It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana
and Washington Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the case of some of them. The people who
have settled these Territories are intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic, and the accession [of] these new States will
add strength to the nation. It is due to the settlers in the Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of
our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their titles should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries
confirmed by patent.

It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have
been for years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the ballot box and about the elector further
safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free and pure, but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the
accession of any who did not so soon discover the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control of elections
in that case over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the several
States, provided penalties for their violation and a method of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws or an
unfair partisan administration of them could suggest a departure from this policy.

It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision
was wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our national life, and no power vested in Congress or
in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional districts
have an equal interest that the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the qualified electors
residing within it. The results of such elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing in other districts
that they shall be pure and free does not savor at all of impertinence.

If in any of the States the public security is thought to be threatened by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy
is education. The sympathy and help of our people will not be withheld from any community struggling with special embarrassments
or difficulties connected with the suffrage if the remedies proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted by just and
honorable methods. How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which
is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat
has renounced his allegiance.

Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give
a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice. A party success
that is achieved by unfair methods or by practices that partake of revolution is hurtful and evanescent even from a party
standpoint. We should hold our differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the
ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision
had been in our favor.

No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to
look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a diadem and has laid
at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition
that justice and mercy shall hold the reins of power and that the upward avenues of hope shall be free to all the people.

I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them
all. Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body of our people
are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by
rude and indecent methods without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body. The peaceful agencies of commerce are more
fully revealing the necessary unity of all our communities, and the increasing intercourse of our people is promoting mutual
respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation which our next census will make of the swift development of the
great resources of some of the States. Each State will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the nation's
increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle from the hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed,
counted, and valued, we will turn from them all to crown with the highest honor the State that has most promoted education,
virtue, justice, and patriotism among its people.

Science and mathematics were high on the long list of subjects that interested Jefferson, and he thus took special care in replying to a letter from
William Green Mumford, who had sought Jefferson's opinion of their importance. In the portion of his letter to Mumford of
June 18, 1799, that is reprinted here, Jefferson related the study of science to the freedom and perfectibility of the human
mind.

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of May 14, in which you mention that you have finished the first six books
of Euclid, plane trigonometry, surveying, and algebra, and ask whether I think a further pursuit of that branch of science
would be useful to you. There are some propositions in the latter books of Euclid, and some of Archimedes, which are useful,
and I have no doubt you have been made acquainted with them. Trigonometry, so far as this, is most valuable to every man;
there is scarcely a day in which he will not resort to it for some of the purposes of common life.

The science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots; algebra as far as
the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms is often of value in ordinary cases. But all beyond these is but a luxury;
a delicious luxury, indeed, but not to be indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence. In
this light I view the conic sections, curves of the higher orders, perhaps even spherical trigonometry, algebraical operations
beyond the second dimension and fluxions.

There are other branches of science, however, worth the attention of every man: astronomy, botany, chemistry, natural philosophy,
natural history, anatomy. Not indeed to be a proficient in them but to possess their general principles and outlines, so as
that we may be able to amuse and inform ourselves further in any of them as we proceed through life and have occasion for
them. Some knowledge of them is necessary for our character as well as comfort. The general elements of astronomy and of natural
philosophy are best acquired at an academy where we can have the benefit of the instruments and apparatus usually provided
there. But the others may well be acquired from books alone as far as our purposes require. I have indulged myself in these
observations to you because the evidence cannot be unuseful to you of a person who has often had occasion to consider which
of his acquisitions in science have been really useful to him in life, and which of them have been merely a matter of luxury.

I am among those who think well of the human character generally. I consider man as formed for society and endowed by nature
with those dispositions which fit him for society. I believe also, with Condorcet, as mentioned in your letter, that his mind
is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception. It is impossible for a man who takes a survey of
what is already known not to see what an immensity in every branch of science yet remains to be discovered, and that too of
articles to which our faculties seem adequate.

In geometry and calculation we know a great deal. Yet there are some desiderata. In anatomy great progress has been made,
but much is still to be acquired. In natural history we possess knowledge, but we want a great deal. In chemistry we are not
yet sure of the first elements. Our natural philosophy is in a very infantine state; perhaps for great advances in it, a further
progress in chemistry is necessary. Surgery is well advanced, but prodigiously short of what may be. The state of medicine
is worse than that of total ignorance. Could we divest ourselves of everything we suppose we know in it, we should start from
a higher ground and with fairer prospects.

From Hippocrates to Brown we have had nothing but a succession of hypothetical systems, each having its day of vogue, like
the fashions and fancies of caps and gowns, and yielding in turn to the next caprice. Yet the human frame, which is to be
the subject of suffering and torture under these learned modes, does not change. We have a few medicines, as the bark, opium,
mercury, which in a few well-defined diseases are of unquestionable virtue; but the residuary list of the materia medica,
long as it is, contains but the charlataneries of the art; and of the diseases of doubtful form, physicians have ever had
a false knowledge, worse than ignorance. Yet surely the list of unequivocal diseases and remedies is capable of enlargement;
and it is still more certain that in the other branches of science, great fields are yet to be explored to which our faculties
are equal, and that to an extent of which we cannot fix the limits.

I join you, therefore, in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances. This is precisely
the doctrine which the present despots of the earth are inculcating and their friends here reechoing; and applying especially
to religion and politics, "that it is not probable that anything better will be discovered than what was known to our fathers."
We are to look backward, then, and not forward for the improvement of science, and to find it amidst feudal barbarians and
the fires of Spitalfields. But thank heaven the American mind is already too much opened to listen to these impostures; and
while the art of printing is left to us, science can never be retrograde; what is once acquired of real knowledge can never
be lost.

To preserve the freedom of the human mind, then, and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to
martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.
The generation which is going off the stage has deserved well of mankind for the struggles it has made, and for having arrested
that course of despotism which had overwhelmed the world for thousands and thousands of years. If there seems to be danger
that the ground they have gained will be lost again, that danger comes from the generation your contemporary.

But that the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such
a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and this country. Your college at least has shown
itself incapable of it; and if the youth of any other place have seemed to rally under other banners, it has been from delusions
which they will soon dissipate.

I shall be happy to hear from you from time to time, and of your progress in study, and to be useful to you in whatever is
in my power.

Source: "A Tribute to Philip May Hamer on the Completion of Ten Years as Executive Director, the National Historical Publications
Commission," New York, December 29, 1960.

The agreements arrived at during the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919 dealt, among other things, with territorial adjustments,
colonial claims, war reparations, and arms control. President Wilson, who headed the American delegation, was convinced that
no lasting peace was possible unless, in addition to those, an international organization came into existence. On January
25 he accepted the post of chairman of the commission that drew up the Covenant of the League of Nations and that submitted
it to a plenary session of the Conference on February 14. Reprinted here is Wilson's explanatory speech made immediately after
the Covenant was read to the delegates.

It gives me pleasure to add to this formal reading of the result of our labors that the character of the discussion which
occurred at the sittings of the commission was not only of the most constructive but of the most encouraging sort. It was
obvious throughout our discussions that, although there were subjects upon which there were individual differences of judgment
with regard to the method by which our objects should be obtained, there was practically at no point any serious differences
of opinion or motive as to the objects which we were seeking.

Indeed, while these debates were not made the opportunity for the expression of enthusiasm and sentiments, I think the other
members of the commission will agree with me that there was an undertone of high respect and of enthusiasm for the thing we
were trying to do which was heartening throughout everything.

Because we felt that in a way this conference did entrust into us the expression of one of its highest and most important
purposes, to see to it that the concord of the world in the future with regard to the objects of justice should not be subject
to doubt or uncertainty; that the cooperation of the great body of nations should be assured in the maintenance of peace upon
terms of honor and of international obligations.

The compulsion of that task was constantly upon us, and at no point was there shown the slightest desire to do anything but
suggest the best means to accomplish that great object. There is very great significance, therefore, in the fact that the
result was reached unanimously.

Fourteen nations were represented, among them all of those powers which for convenience we have called the Great Powers, and
among the rest a representation of the greatest variety of circumstances and interests. So that I think we are justified in
saying that the significance of the result, therefore, has the deepest of all meanings, the union of wills in a common purpose,
a union of wills which cannot be resisted and which, I dare say, no nation will run the risk of attempting to resist.

Now, as to the character of the document. While it has consumed some time to read this document, I think you will see at once
that it is very simple, and in nothing so simple as in the structure which it suggests for a league of nations, a body of
delegates, an executive council, and a permanent secretariat.

When it came to the question of determining the character of the representation in the Body of Delegates, we were all aware
of a feeling which is current throughout the world.

Inasmuch as I am stating it in the presence of the official representatives of the various governments here present, including
myself, I may say that there is a universal feeling that the world cannot rest satisfied with merely official guidance. There
has reached us through many channels the feeling that if the deliberating body of the League of Nations was merely to be a
body of officials representing the various governments, the peoples of the world would not be sure that some of the mistakes
which preoccupied officials had admittedly made might not be repeated.

It was impossible to conceive a method or an assembly so large and various as to be really representative of the great body
of the peoples of the world, because, as I roughly reckon it, we represent as we sit around this table more than 1.2 billion
people.

You cannot have a representative assembly of 1.2 billion people, but if you leave it to each government to have, if it pleases,
one or two or three representatives, though only with a single vote, it may vary its representation from time to time, not
only, but it may (originate) the choice of its several representatives [wireless here unintelligible].

Therefore we thought that this was a proper and a very prudent concession to the practically universal opinion of plain men
everywhere that they wanted the door left open to a variety of representation, instead of being confined to a single official
body with which they could or might not find themselves in sympathy.

And you will notice that this body has unlimited rights of discussion. I mean of discussion of anything that falls within
the field of international relations--and that it is especially agreed that war or international misunderstandings or anything
that may lead to friction or trouble is everybody's business, because it may affect the peace of the world.

And in order to safeguard the popular power so far as we could of this representative body, it is provided, you will notice,
that when a subject is submitted it is not to arbitration but to discussion by the Executive Council; it can, upon the initiative
of either of the parties to the dispute, be drawn out of the Executive Council on the larger form of the general Body of Delegates,
because through this instrument we are depending primarily and chiefly upon one great force, and this is the moral force of
the public opinion of the world--the pleasing and clarifying and compelling influences of publicity--so that intrigues can
no longer have their coverts; so that designs that are sinister can at anytime be drawn into the open; so that those things
that are destroyed by the light may be promptly destroyed by the overwhelming light of the universal expression of the condemnation
of the world.

Armed force is in the background in this program; but it is in the background, and, if the moral force of the world will not
suffice, the physical force of the world shall. But that is the last resort, because this is intended as a constitution of
peace, not as a league of war.

The simplicity of the document seems to me to be one of its chief virtues, because, speaking for myself, I was unable to see
the variety of circumstances with which this League would have to deal. I was unable, therefore, to plan all the machinery
that might be necessary to meet the differing and unexpected contingencies. Therefore, I should say of this document that
it is not a straitjacket but a vehicle of life.

A living thing is born, and we must see to it what clothes we put on it. It is not a vehicle of power, but a vehicle in which
power may be varied at the discretion of those who exercise it and in accordance with the changing circumstances of the time.
And yet, while it is elastic, while it is general in its terms, it is definite in the one thing that we were called upon to
make definite.

It is a definite guaranty of peace. It is a definite guaranty by word against aggression. It is a definite guaranty against
the things which have just come near bringing the whole structure of civilization into ruin.

Its purposes do not for a moment lie vague. Its purposes are declared, and its powers are unmistakable. It is not in contemplation
that this should be merely a league to secure the peace of the world. It is a league which can be used for cooperation in
any international matter.

That is the significance of the provision introduced concerning labor. There are many ameliorations of labor conditions which
can be effected by conference and discussion. I anticipate that there will be a very great usefulness in the Bureau of Labor
which it is contemplated shall be set up by the League.

Men and women and children who work have been in the background through long ages and sometimes seemed to be forgotten, while
governments have had their watchful and suspicious eyes upon the maneuvers of one another, while the thought of statesmen
has been about structural action and the larger transactions of commerce and of finance.

Now, if I may believe the picture which I see, there comes into the foreground the great body of the laboring people of the
world, the men and women and children upon whom the great burden of sustaining the world must from day to day fall, whether
we wish it to do so or not; people who go to bed tired and wake up without the stimulation of lively hope. These people will
be drawn into the field of international consultation and help, and will be among the wards of the combined governments of
the world. This is, I take leave to say, a very great step in advance in the mere conception of that.

Then, as you will notice, there is an imperative article concerning the publicity of all international agreements. Henceforth
no member of the League can call any agreement valid which it has not registered with the secretary general, in whose office,
of course, it will be subject to the examination of any body representing a member of the League. And the duty is laid upon
the secretary general to earliest possible time.

I suppose most persons who have not been conversant with the business of foreign affairs do not realize how many hundreds
of these agreements are made in a single year, and how difficult it might be to publish the more unimportant of them immediately.
How uninteresting it would be to most of the world to publish them immediately, but even they must be published just as soon
as it is possible for the secretary general to publish them.

There has been no greater advance than this, gentlemen. If you look back upon the history of the world you will see how helpless
peoples have too often been a prey to powers that had no conscience in the matter. It has been one of the many distressing
revelations of recent years that the great power which has just been, happily, defeated put intolerable burdens and injustices
upon the helpless people of some of the colonies which it annexed to itself; that its interest was rather their extermination
than their development; that the desire was to possess their land for European purposes, and not to enjoy their confidence
in order that mankind might be lifted in these places to the next higher level.

Now, the world, expressing its conscience in law, says there is an end of that, that our consciences shall be settled to this
thing. States will be picked out which have already shown that they can exercise a conscience in this matter, and under their
tutelage the helpless peoples of the world will come into a new light and into a new hope.

Although the strife in Cuba was not a major issue in the presidential campaign of 1896, its importance for America was already
recognized by political leaders. In his final presidential message to Congress on December 7, 1896, Grover Cleveland reviewed
the unpleasant history of Spanish-Cuban relations and outlined what he felt were the alternatives open to the United States.
Cleveland reflected popular opinion in his earnest attempt to explore every peaceful means for a solution to the Cuban crisis.
The president realized that Cuba's proximity bound its fate to the United States, but his message, a portion of which appears
below, expressed his hope that U.S. intervention would not be necessary.

The insurrection in Cuba still continues with all its perplexities. It is difficult to perceive that any progress has thus
far been made toward the pacification of the island or that the situation of affairs as depicted in my last annual message
has in the least improved. If Spain still holds Havana and the seaports and all the considerable towns, the insurgents still
roam at will over at least two-thirds of the inland country. If the determination of Spain to put down the insurrection seems
but to strengthen with the lapse of time and is evinced by her unhesitating devotion of largely increased military and naval
forces to the task, there is much reason to believe that the insurgents have gained in point of numbers and character and
resources, and are none the less inflexible in their resolve not to succumb without practically securing the great objects
for which they took up arms.

If Spain has not yet reestablished her authority, neither have the insurgents yet made good their title to be regarded as
an independent state. Indeed, as the contest has gone on, the pretense that civil government exists on the island, except
so far as Spain is able to maintain it, has been practically abandoned. Spain does keep on foot such a government, more or
less imperfectly, in the large towns and their immediate suburbs. But, that exception being made, the entire country is either
given over to anarchy or is subject to the military occupation of one or the other party. It is reported, indeed, on reliable
authority that, at the demand of the commander in chief of the insurgent army, the putative Cuban government has now given
up all attempt to exercise its functions, leaving that government confessedly (what there is the best reason for supposing
it always to have been in fact) a government merely on paper.

Were the Spanish armies able to meet their antagonists in the open or in pitched battle, prompt and decisive results might
be looked for and the immense superiority of the Spanish forces in numbers, discipline, and equipment could hardly fail to
tell greatly to their advantage. But they are called upon to face a foe that shuns general engagements, that can choose and
does choose its own ground, that, from the nature of the country, is visible or invisible at pleasure, and that fights only
from ambuscade and when all the advantages of position and numbers are on its side. In a country where all that is indispensable
to life in the way of food, clothing, and shelter is so easily obtainable, especially by those born and bred on the soil,
it is obvious that there is hardly a limit to the time during which hostilities of this sort may be prolonged.

Meanwhile, as in all cases of protracted civil strife, the passions of the combatants grow more and more inflamed, and excesses
on both sides become more frequent and more deplorable. They are also participated in by bands of marauders, who, now in the
name of one party and now in the name of the other, as may best suit the occasion, harry the country at will and plunder its
wretched inhabitants for their own advantage. Such a condition of things would inevitably entail immense destruction of property,
even if it were the policy of both parties to prevent it as far as practicable. But while such seemed to be the original policy
of the Spanish government, it has now apparently abandoned it and is acting upon the same theory as the insurgents, namely,
that the exigencies of the contest require the wholesale annihilation of property that it may not prove of use and advantage
to the enemy.

It is to the same end that, in pursuance of general orders, Spanish garrisons are now being withdrawn from plantations and
the rural population required to concentrate itself in the towns. The sure result would seem to be that the industrial value
of the island is fast diminishing, and that unless there is a speedy and radical change in existing conditions, it will soon
disappear altogether. That value consists very largely, of course, in its capacity to produce sugar--a capacity already much
reduced by the interruptions to tillage which have taken place during the last two years. It is reliably asserted that should
these interruptions continue during the current year and practically extend, as is now threatened, to the entire sugar-producing
territory of the island, so much time and so much money will be required to restore the land to its normal productiveness
that it is extremely doubtful if capital can be induced to even make the attempt.

The spectacle of the utter ruin of an adjoining country, by nature one of the most fertile and charming on the globe, would
engage the serious attention of the government and people of the United States in any circumstances. In point of fact, they
have a concern with it which is by no means of a wholly sentimental or philanthropic character. It lies so near to us as to
be hardly separated from our territory. Our actual pecuniary interest in it is second only to that of the people and government
of Spain. It is reasonably estimated that at least from $30 million to $50 million of American capital are invested in plantations
and in railroad, mining, and other business enterprises on the island. The volume of trade between the United States and Cuba,
which in 1889 amounted to about $64 million, rose in 1893 to about $103 million, and in 1894, the year before the present
insurrection broke out, amounted to nearly $96 million.

Besides this large pecuniary stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States finds itself inextricably involved in the present
contest in other ways, both vexatious and costly. Many Cubans reside in this country and indirectly promote the insurrection
through the press, by public meetings, by the purchase and shipment of arms, by the raising of funds, and by other means,
which the spirit of our institutions and the tenor of our laws do not permit to be made the subject of criminal prosecutions.
Some of them, though Cubans at heart and in all their feelings and interests, have taken out papers as naturalized citizens
of the United States, a proceeding resorted to with a view to possible protection by this government and not unnaturally regarded
with much indignation by the country of their origin.

The insurgents are undoubtedly encouraged and supported by the widespread sympathy the people of this country always and instinctively
feel for every struggle for better and freer government and which, in the case of the more adventurous and restless elements
of our population, leads in only too many instances to active and personal participation in the contest. The result is that
this government is constantly called upon to protect American citizens, to claim damages for injuries to persons and property,
now estimated at many millions of dollars, and to ask explanations and apologies for the acts of Spanish officials, whose
zeal for the repression of rebellion sometimes blinds them to the immunities belonging to the unoffending citizens of a friendly
power. It follows from the same causes that the United States is compelled to actively police a long line of seacoast against
unlawful expeditions, the escape of which the utmost vigilance will not always suffice to prevent.

These inevitable entanglements of the United States with the rebellion in Cuba, the large American property interests affected,
and considerations of philanthropy and humanity in general, have led to a vehement demand in various quarters for some sort
of positive intervention on the part of the United States. It was at first proposed that belligerent rights should be accorded
to the insurgents--a proposition no longer urged because untimely and in practical operation clearly perilous and injurious
to our own interests. It has since been and is now sometimes contended that the independence of the insurgents should be recognized.
But imperfect and restricted as the Spanish government of the island may be, no other exists there--unless the will of the
military officer in temporary command of a particular district can be dignified as a species of government.

It is now also suggested that the United States should buy the island--a suggestion possibly worthy of consideration if there
were any evidence of a desire or willingness on the part of Spain to entertain such a proposal. It is urged, finally, that,
all other methods failing, the existing internecine strife in Cuba should be terminated by our intervention, even at the cost
of a war between the United States and Spain--a war which its advocates confidently prophesy could be neither large in its
proportions nor doubtful in its issue.

The correctness of this forecast need be neither affirmed nor denied. The United States has nevertheless a character to maintain
as a nation, which plainly dictates that right and not might should be the rule of its conduct. Further, though the United
States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity, it is in truth the most pacific of power and desires nothing so much
as to live in amity with all the world. Its own ample and diversified domains satisfy all possible longings for territory,
preclude all dreams of conquest, and prevent any casting of covetous eyes upon neighboring regions, however attractive.

That our conduct toward Spain and her dominions has constituted no exception to this national disposition is made manifest
by the course of our government, not only thus far during the present insurrection but during the ten years that followed
the rising at Yara in 1868. No other great power, it may safely be said, under circumstances of similar perplexity, would
have manifested the same restraint and the same patient endurance. It may also be said that this persistent attitude of the
United States toward Spain in connection with Cuba unquestionably evinces no slight respect and regard for Spain on the part
of the American people.

They in truth do not forget her connection with the discovery of the Western Hemisphere, nor do they underestimate the great
qualities of the Spanish people, nor fail to fully recognize their splendid patriotism and their chivalrous devotion to the
national honor. They view with wonder and admiration the cheerful resolution with which vast bodies of men are sent across
thousands of miles of ocean, and an enormous debt accumulated, that the costly possession of the Gem of the Antilles may still
hold its place in the Spanish Crown.

And yet neither the government nor the people of the United States have shut their eyes to the course of events in Cuba or
have failed to realize the existence of conceded grievances, which have led to the present revolt from the authority of Spain--grievances
recognized by the queen regent and by the Cortes, voiced by the most patriotic and enlightened of Spanish statesmen, without
regard to party, and demonstrated by reforms proposed by the executive and approved by the legislative branch of the Spanish
government. It is in the assumed temper and disposition of the Spanish government to remedy these grievances, fortified by
indications of influential public opinion in Spain, that this government has hoped to discover the most promising and effective
means of composing the present strife, with honor and advantage to Spain and with the achievement of all the reasonable objects
of the insurrection.

It would seem that if Spain should offer to Cuba genuine autonomy--a measure of home rule which, while preserving the sovereignty
of Spain, would satisfy all rational requirements of her Spanish subjects--there should be no just reason why the pacification
of the island might not be effected on that basis. Such a result would appear to be in the true interest of all concerned.
It would at once stop the conflict....

It would keep intact the possessions of Spain without touching her honor, which will be consulted rather than impugned by
the adequate redress of admitted grievances. It would put the prosperity of the island and the fortunes of its inhabitants
within their own control without severing the natural and ancient ties which bind them to the mother country, and would yet
enable them to test their capacity for self-government under the most favorable conditions.

It has been objected, on the one side, that Spain should not promise autonomy until her insurgent subjects lay down their
arms; on the other side, that promised autonomy, however liberal, is insufficient, because without assurance of the promise
being fulfilled. But the reasonableness of a requirement by Spain of unconditional surrender on the part of the insurgent
Cubans before their autonomy is conceded is not altogether apparent. It ignores important features of the situation--the stability
two years' duration has given to the insurrection; the feasibility of its indefinite prolongation in the nature of things
and as shown by past experience; the utter and imminent ruin of the island, unless the present strife is speedily composed;
above all, the rank abuses which all parties in Spain, all branches of her government, and all her leading public men concede
to exist and profess a desire to remove.

Facing such circumstances, to withhold the proffer of needed reforms until the parties demanding them put themselves at mercy
by throwing down their arms has the appearance of neglecting the gravest of perils and inviting suspicion as to the sincerity
of any professed willingness to grant reforms. The objection on behalf of the insurgents--that promised reforms cannot be
relied upon--must of course be considered, though we have no right to assume, and no reason for assuming, that anything Spain
undertakes to do for the relief of Cuba will not be done according to both the spirit and the letter of the undertaking.

Nevertheless, realizing that suspicions and precautions on the part of the weaker of two combatants are always natural and
not always unjustifiable, being sincerely desirous in the interest of both as well as on its own account that the Cuban problem
should be solved with the least possible delay, it was intimated by this government to the government of Spain some months
ago that, if a satisfactory measure of home rule were tendered the Cuban insurgents and would be accepted by them upon a guarantee
of its execution, the United States would endeavor to find a way not objectionable to Spain of furnishing such guarantee.
While no definite response to this intimation has yet been received from the Spanish government, it is believed to be not
altogether unwelcome, while, as already suggested, no reason is perceived why it should not be approved by the insurgents.

Neither party can fail to see the importance of early action, and both must realize that to prolong the present state of things
for even a short period will add enormously to the time and labor and expenditure necessary to bring about the industrial
recuperation of the island. It is therefore fervently hoped on all grounds that earnest efforts for healing the breach between
Spain and the insurgent Cubans, upon the lines above indicated, may be at once inaugurated and pushed to an immediate and
successful issue. The friendly offices of the United States, either in the manner above outlined or in any other way consistent
with our Constitution and laws, will always be at the disposal of either party.

Whatever circumstances may arise, our policy and our interests would constrain us to object to the acquisition of the island
or an interference with its control by any other power.

It should be added that it cannot be reasonably assumed that the hitherto expectant attitude of the United States will be
indefinitely maintained. While we are anxious to accord all due respect to the sovereignty of Spain, we cannot view the pending
conflict in all its features and properly apprehend our inevitably close relations to it and its possible results without
considering that, by the course of events, we may be drawn into such an unusual and unprecedented condition as will fix a
limit to our patient waiting for Spain to end the contest, either alone and in her own way or with our friendly cooperation.

When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that her
sovereignty is extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, and when a hopeless struggle for its reestablishment
has degenerated into a strife which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and the utter destruction
of the very subject matter of the conflict, a situation will be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty of Spain
will be superseded by higher obligations, which we can hardly hesitate to recognize and discharge. Deferring the choice of
ways and methods until the time for action arrives, we should make them depend upon the precise conditions then existing;
and they should not be determined upon without giving careful heed to every consideration involving our honor and interest
or the international duty we owe to Spain. Until we face the contingencies suggested, or the situation is by other incidents
imperatively changed, we should continue in the line of conduct heretofore pursued, thus in all circumstances exhibiting our
obedience to the requirements of public law and our regard for the duty enjoined upon us by the position we occupy in the
family of nations.

A contemplation of emergencies that may arise should plainly lead us to avoid their creation, either through a careless disregard
of present duty or even an undue stimulation and ill-timed expression of feeling. But I have deemed it not amiss to remind
the Congress that a time may arrive when a correct policy and care for our interests, as well as a regard for the interests
of other nations and their citizens, joined by considerations of humanity and a desire to see a rich and fertile country,
intimately related to us, saved from complete devastation, will constrain our government to such action as will subserve the
interests thus involved and the same time promise to Cuba and its inhabitants an opportunity to enjoy the blessings of peace.

Source: [United States Department of State] Papers Relating to Foreign Relations of the United States, 1896, pp. xxvii-lxii.

In the years following the Revolution, many Americans were willing to assert cultural as well as political independence from
the Old World. Their notion was that since America was separated by 3,000 miles from Europe and had her own destiny, she should
develop indigenous institutions in accordance with her own ideals. Higher education for an American, Jefferson felt, ought to take place in his own country, not in some foreign land whose influence might weaken
his native ties. In a letter to John Banister of October 15, 1785, Jefferson made plain what to him were the differences between
educating Americans at home and abroad.

I should sooner have answered the paragraph in your letter of September 19, respecting the best seminary for the eduction
of youth in Europe, but that it was necessary for me to make inquiries on the subject. The result of these has been to consider
the competition as resting between Geneva and Rome.

They are equally cheap and probably are equal in the course of education pursued. The advantage of Geneva is that students
acquire there the habit of speaking French. The advantages of Rome are the acquiring a local knowledge of a spot so classical
and so celebrated; the acquiring the true pronunciation of the Latin language; a just taste in the fine arts, more particularly
those of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music; a familiarity with those objects and processes of agriculture, which
experience has shown best adapted to a climate like ours; and lastly, the advantage of a fine climate for health. It is probable,
too, that by being boarded in a French family, the habit of speaking that language may be obtained.

I do not count on any advantage to be derived in Geneva, from a familiar acquaintance with the principles of that government.
The late revolution has rendered it a tyrannical aristocracy, more likely to give ill than good ideas to an American. I think
the balance in favor of Rome. Pisa is sometimes spoken of as a place of education. But it does not offer the first and third
of the advantages of Rome.

But why send an American youth to Europe for education? What are the objects of a useful American education? Classical knowledge;
modern languages, chiefly French, Spanish, and Italian; mathematics; natural philosophy; natural history; civil history; and
ethics. In natural philosophy, I mean to include chemistry and agriculture, and in natural history, to include botany, as
well as the other branches of those departments. It is true that the habit of speaking the modern languages cannot be so well
acquired in America; but every other article can be as well acquired at William and Mary College as at any place in Europe.
When college education is done with and a young man is to prepare himself for public life, he must cast his eyes (for America)
either on law or physic [medicine]. For the former, where can he apply so advantageously as to Mr. Wythe? For the latter,
he must come to Europe. The medical class of students, therefore, is the only one which need come to Europe.

Let us view the disadvantages of sending a youth to Europe. To enumerate them all would require a volume. I will select a
few. If he goes to England, he learns drinking, horse racing, and boxing. These are the peculiarities of English education.
The following circumstances are common to education in that and the other countries of Europe. He acquires a fondness for
European luxury and dissipation, and a contempt for the simplicity of his own country; he is fascinated with the privileges
of the European aristocrats, and sees with abhorrence the lovely equality which the poor enjoy with the rich in his own country;
he contracts a partiality for aristocracy or monarchy; he forms foreign friendships which will never be useful to him, and
loses the seasons of life for forming in his own country those friendships which, of all others, are the most faithful and
permanent. He is led by the strongest of all the human passions into a spirit for female intrigue, destructive of his own
and others' happiness, or a passion for whores, destructive of his health; and, in both cases, learns to consider fidelity
to the marriage bed as an ungentlemanly practice and inconsistent with happiness. He recollects the voluptuary dress and arts
of the European women, and pities and despises the chaste affections and simplicity of those of his own country; he retains
through life a fond recollection and a hankering after those places which were the scenes of his first pleasures and of his
first connections.

He returns to his own country a foreigner, unacquainted with the practices of domestic economy necessary to preserve him from
ruin, speaking and writing his native tongue as a foreigner, and therefore unqualified to obtain those distinctions which
eloquence of the pen and tongue insures in a free country; for I would observe to you that what is called style in writing
or speaking is formed very early in life, while the imagination is warm and impressions are permanent. I am of opinion that
there never was an instance of a man's writing or speaking his native tongue with elegance who passed from fifteen to twenty
years of age out of the country where it was spoken. Thus, no instance exists of a person's writing two languages perfectly.
That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

It appears to me, then, that an American coming to Europe for education loses in his knowledge, in his morals, in his health,
in his habits, and in his happiness. I had entertained only doubts on this head before I came to Europe; what I see and hear
since I came here proves more than I had even suspected. Cast your eye over America. Who are the men of most learning, of
most eloquence, most beloved by their countrymen and most trusted and promoted by them? They are those who have been educated
among them, and whose manners, morals, and habits are perfectly homogeneous with those of the country.

Did you expect by so short a question to draw such a sermon on yourself? I dare say you did not. But the consequences of foreign
education are alarming to me as an American. I sin, therefore, through zeal, whenever I enter on the subject. You are sufficiently
American to pardon me for it.

On Monday evening, August 12, 1974, President Ford addressed a joint session of Congress. Although his remarks contained few
legislative proposals, they did set the tone of his administration by urging fiscal restraint to fight inflation and by suggesting
the willingness to veto any measures he deemed too costly. The purpose of the message was primarily to acquaint the American
people with their new President.

My fellow Americans, we have a lot of work to do. My former colleagues, you and I have a lot of work to do. Let's get on with
it.

Needless to say, I am deeply grateful for the wonderfully warm welcome. I can never express my gratitude adequately.

I am not here to make an inaugural address. The Nation needs action, not words. Nor will this be a formal report of the State
of the Union. God willing, I will have at least three more chances to do that.

It is good to be back in the People's House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to
the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branch, head, heart, and hand.

With due respect to the learned Justices--and I greatly respect the judiciary--part of my heart will always be here on Capitol
Hill. I know well the co-equal role of the Congress in our constitutional process. I love the House of Representatives.

I revere the traditions of the Senate despite my too-short internship in that great body. As President, within the limits
of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise, and cooperation.

This Congress, unless it has changed, I am confident, will be my working partner as well as my most constructive critic. I
am not asking for conformity. I am dedicated to the two-party system, and you know which party I belong to.

I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.

I want progress, and I want problem-solving which requires my best efforts and also your best efforts.

I have no need to learn how Congress speaks for the people. As President, I intend to listen.

But I also intend to listen to the people themselves--all the people--as I promised last Friday. I want to be sure that we
are all tuned in to the real voice of America.

My Administration starts off by seeking unity in diversity. My office door has always been open, and that is how it is going
to be at the White House. Yes, Congressmen will be welcomed--if you don't overdo it. [Laughter]

The first seven words of the Constitution and the most important are these: We, the people of the United States. We, the people,
ordained and established the Constitution and reserved to themselves all powers not granted to Federal and State government.
I respect and will always be conscious of that fundamental rule of freedom.

Only 8 months ago, when I last stood here, I told you I was a Ford, not a Lincoln. Tonight I say I am still a Ford, but I
am not a Model T.

I do have some old-fashioned ideas, however. I believe in the very basic decency and fairness of America. I believe in the
integrity and patriotism of the Congress. And while I am aware of the House rule that no one ever speaks to the galleries,
I believe in the first amendment and the absolute necessity of a free press.

But I also believe that over two centuries since the First Continental Congress was convened, the direction of our Nation's
movement has been forward. I am here to confess that in my first campaign for President--of my senior class in South High
School in Grand Rapids, Michigan--I headed the Progressive Party ticket, and lost. Maybe that is why I became a Republican.
[Laughter]

Now I ask you to join with me in getting this country revved up and moving. . . .

The first specific request by the Ford Administration is not to Congress but to the voters in the upcoming November elections.
It is this, very simply: Support your candidates, Congressmen and Senators, Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals,
who consistently vote for tough decisions to cut the cost of government, restrain Federal spending, and bring inflation under
control.

I applaud the initiatives Congress has already taken. The only fault I find with the Joint Economic Committee's study on inflation,
authorized last week, is that we need its expert findings in 6 weeks instead of 6 months.

A month ago, the distinguished majority leader of the United States Senate asked the White House to convene an economic conference
of Members of Congress, the President's economic consultants, and some of the best economic brains from labor, industry, and
agriculture.

Later, this was perfected by resolution to assemble a domestic summit meeting to devise a bipartisan action for stability
and growth in the American economy. Neither I nor my staff have much time right now for letterwriting. So I will respond.
I accept the suggestion, and I will personally preside.

Furthermore, I propose that this summit meeting be held at an early date, in full view of the American public. They are as
anxious as we are to get the right answers.

My first priority is to work with you to bring inflation under control. Inflation is domestic enemy number one. To restore
economic confidence, the Government in Washington must provide some leadership. It does no good to blame the public for spending
too much when the Government is spending too much.

I began to put my Administration's own economic house in order starting last Friday.

I instructed my Cabinet officers and Counsellors and my White House Staff to make fiscal restraint their first order of business,
and to save every taxpayer's dollar the safety and genuine welfare of our great Nation will permit. Some economic activities
will be affected more by monetary and fiscal restraint than other activities. Good government clearly requires that we tend
to the economic problems facing our country in a spirit of equity to all of our citizens in all segments of our society.

Tonight, obviously, is no time to threaten you with vetoes. But I do have the last recourse, and I am a veteran of many a
veto fight right here in this great chamber. Can't we do a better job by reasonable compromise? I hope we can.

Minutes after I took the Presidential oath, the joint leadership of Congress told me at the White House they would go more
than half way to meet me. This was confirmed in your unanimous concurrent resolution of cooperation, for which I am deeply
grateful. If, for my part, I go more than half way to meet the Congress, maybe we can find a much larger area of national
agreement.

I bring no legislative shopping list here this evening. I will deal with specifics in future messages and talks with you,
but here are a few examples of how seriously I feel about what we must do together.

Last week, the Congress passed the elementary and secondary education bill, and I found it on my desk. Any reservations I
might have about some of its provisions--and I do have--fade in comparison to the urgent needs of America for quality education.
I will sign it in a few days.

I must be frank. In implementing its provisions, I will oppose excessive funding during this inflationary crisis.

As Vice President, I studied various proposals for better health care financing. I saw them coming closer together and urged
my friends in the Congress and in the Administration to sit down and sweat out a sound compromise. The Comprehensive Health
Insurance Plan goes a long ways toward providing early relief to people who are sick.

Why don't we write--and I ask this with the greatest spirit of cooperation--why don't we write a good health bill on the statute
books in 1974, before this Congress adjourns?

The economy of our country is critically dependent on how we interact with the economies of other countries. It is little
comfort that our inflation is only a part of a worldwide problem or that American families need less of their paychecks for
groceries than most of our foreign friends.

As one of the building blocks of peace, we have taken the lead in working toward a more open and a more equitable world economic
system. A new round of international trade negotiations started last September among 105 nations in Tokyo. The others are
waiting for the United States Congress to grant the necessary authority to the executive branch to proceed.

With modifications, the trade reform bill passed by the House last year would do a good job. I understand good progress has
been made in the Senate Committee on Finance. But I am optimistic, as always, that the Senate will pass an acceptable bill
quickly as a key part of our joint prosperity campaign.

I am determined to expedite other international economic plans. We will be working together with other nations to find better
ways to prevent shortages of food and fuel. We must not let last winter's energy crisis happen again. I will push Project
Independence for our own good and the good of others. In that, too, I will need your help.

Successful foreign policy is an extension of the hopes of the whole American people for a world of peace and orderly reform
and orderly freedom. So, I would say a few words to our distinguished guests from the governments of other nations where,
as at home, it is my determination to deal openly with allies and adversaries. Over the past 5 1/2 years in Congress and as
Vice President, I have fully supported the outstanding foreign policy of President Nixon. This policy I intend to continue.
. . .

Our job will not be easy. In promising continuity, I cannot promise simplicity. The problems and challenges of the world remain
complex and difficult. But we have set out on a path of reason, of fairness, and we will continue on it.

As guideposts on that path, I offer the following:

--To our allies of a generation in the Atlantic community and Japan, I pledge continuity in the loyal collaboration on our
many mutual endeavors.

--To our friends and allies in this hemisphere, I pledge continuity in the deepening dialog to define renewed relationships
of equality and justice.

--To our allies and friends in Asia, I pledge a continuity in our support for their security, independence, and economic development.
In Indochina, we are determined to see the observance of the Paris agreement on Vietnam and the cease-fire and negotiated
settlement in Laos. We hope to see an early compromise settlement in Cambodia.

--To the Soviet Union, I pledge continuity in our commitment to the course of the past 3 years. To our two peoples, and to
all mankind, we owe a continued effort to live and, where possible, to work together in peace; for in a thermonuclear age
there can be no alternative to a positive and peaceful relationship between our nations.

--To the People's Republic of China, whose legendary hospitality I enjoyed, I pledge continuity in our commitment to the principles
of the Shanghai communiqué. The new relationship built on those principles has demonstrated that it serves serious and objective
mutual interests and has become an enduring feature of the world scene.

--To the nations in the Middle East, I pledge continuity in our vigorous efforts to advance the progress which has brought
hopes of peace to that region after 25 years as a hotbed of war. We shall carry out our promise to promote continuing negotiations
among all parties for a complete, just, and lasting settlement.

--To all nations, I pledge continuity in seeking a common global goal: a stable international structure of trade and finance
which reflects the interdependence of all peoples.

--To the entire international community--to the United Nations, to the world's nonaligned nations, and to all others--I pledge
continuity in our dedication to the humane goals which throughout our history have been so much of America's contribution
to mankind.

So long as the peoples of the world have confidence in our purposes and faith in our word, the age-old vision of peace on
earth will grow brighter.

Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill,
Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet,
in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution
routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes
of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your gracious cooperation
in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political
system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your
help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.

The business of our nation goes forward. These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions.
We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions,
penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of
millions of our people.

Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, causing human misery and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied
a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.

But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit,
mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend
is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should
we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding-we are going to begin to act, beginning
today.

The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they
will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever
needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.

From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government
by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself,
then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected.
It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men
and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and
heal us when we are sick-professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers. They are, in short,
"We the people," this breed called Americans.

Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all
Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back
to work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share in the productive
work of this "new beginning" and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which
are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world.

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government-not the other way around. And this makes us
special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check
and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction
between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to
be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work-work
with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother
it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

If we look to the answer as to why, for so many years, we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was
because here, in this land, we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done
before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth.
The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price.

It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives
that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation
to limit ourselves to small dreams. We are not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe
in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with
all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage,
and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope.

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where
to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food
to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter-and they are on both sides of that counter.
There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They
are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture,
art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life.

I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your" because I am addressing
the heroes of whom I speak-you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the
dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God.

We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen,
and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient
so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?

Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic "yes." To paraphrase Winston Churchill,
I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.

In the days ahead I will propose removing the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity. Steps will
be taken aimed at restoring the balance between the various levels of government. Progress may be slow-measured in inches
and feet, not miles-but we will progress. Is it time to reawaken this industrial giant, to get government back within its
means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden. And these will be our first priorities, and on these principles, there will
be no compromise.

On the eve of our struggle for independence a man who might have been one of the greatest among the Founding Fathers, Dr.
Joseph Warren, President of the Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, "Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired
of. . . . On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important questions upon which rests the happiness
and the liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."

Well, I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure
happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children's children.

And as we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world. We will again
be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.

To those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure them of our support and
firm commitment. We will match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually beneficial relations. We will not use our
friendship to impose on their sovereignty, for our own sovereignty is not for sale.

As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration
of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it-now or ever.

Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When
action is required to preserve our national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need
be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral
courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans
do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.

I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I am deeply grateful. We are
a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each Inauguration
Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.

This is the first time in history that this ceremony has been held, as you have been told, on this West Front of the Capitol.
Standing here, one faces a magnificent vista, opening up on this city's special beauty and history. At the end of this open
mall are those shrines to the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man: George Washington, Father of our country. A man of humility who
came to greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the stately
memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence.

And then beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the
meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery
with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the
price that has been paid for our freedom.

Each one of those markers is a monument to the kinds of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau
Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir,
and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam.

Under one such marker lies a young man-Martin Treptow-who left his job in a small town barber shop in 1917 to go to France
with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under
heavy artillery fire.

We are told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, "My Pledge," he had written these words:
"America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully
and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone."

The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others
were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe
in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which
now confront us.

This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.

A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.

When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America,
to endure, would have to change.

Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals-life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march
to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.

Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.

On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America.

And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression, fascism, and Communism.

Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of
freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues.

Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's strongest, but is weakened by business failures,
stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our people.

When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news traveled slowly across the land by horseback
and across the ocean by boat. Now, the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around
the world.

Communications and commerce are global; investment is mobile; technology is almost magical; and ambition for a better life
is now universal. We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth.

Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make
change our friend and not our enemy.

This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most
people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens
to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when
millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead-we have not made change our friend.

We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps. But we have not done so. Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting
has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence.

Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people.
We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us.

From our revolution, the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered
the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history.

Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to
time. Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time. Let us embrace it.

Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America
that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift-a new season of American renewal has begun.

To renew America, we must be bold.

We must do what no generation has had to do before. We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future,
and at the same time cut our massive debt. And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity.

It will not be easy; it will require sacrifice. But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake,
but for our own sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children.

Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander
into sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come-the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have
borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility.

We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.

It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us all take
more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.

To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful
people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those
people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better. And so I say to all of us here,
let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people. Let us put
aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America.

Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation," a government
for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays.

Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs.

To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well as at home. There is no longer division between what is foreign and
what is domestic-the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race-they affect us all.

Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable. Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities
and new dangers. Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make.

While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world.
Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us.

When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act-with
peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when necessary. The brave Americans serving our nation today in the Persian
Gulf, in Somalia, and wherever else they stand are testament to our resolve.

But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are still new in many lands. Across the world, we see them embraced-and
we rejoice. Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their
cause is America's cause.

The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today. You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus. You
have cast your votes in historic numbers. And you have changed the face of Congress, the presidency, and the political process
itself. Yes, you, my fellow Americans have forced the spring. Now, we must do the work the season demands.

To that work I now turn, with all the authority of my office. I ask the Congress to join with me. But no president, no Congress,
no government, can undertake this mission alone. My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal. I challenge
a new generation of young Americans to a season of service-to act on your idealism by helping troubled children, keeping company
with those in need, reconnecting our torn communities. There is so much to be done-enough indeed for millions of others who
are still young in spirit to give of themselves in service, too.

In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth-we need each other. And we must care for one another. Today, we do more
than celebrate America; we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America.

An idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of challenge. An idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for
fate, we-the fortunate and the unfortunate-might have been each other. An idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon
from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity. An idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic journey
must go forever upward.

And so, my fellow Americans, at the edge of the 21st century, let us begin with energy and hope, with faith and discipline,
and let us work until our work is done. The scripture says, "And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we
shall reap, if we faint not."

From this joyful mountaintop of celebration, we hear a call to service in the valley. We have heard the trumpets. We have
changed the guard. And now, each in our way, and with God's help, we must answer the call.

Throughout 1946 Communist forces, supported by the Soviet satellite states of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania, carried on
a full-scale guerrilla war against the Greek government. At the same time the U.S.S.R. demanded from Turkey the right to establish
bases and the surrender of Turkish territory at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Soviet expansionism threatened not only
the Mediterranean but the oil-rich Middle East. The civil war in Greece had reached a critical stage when Great Britain informed
the United States on February 24, 1947, that it could no longer give aid to the Greek government. President Truman was advised
by military experts that Greece might fall to the Communists unless American aid was immediately forthcoming. Despite anticipated
opposition from Congress, Truman decided to commit the United States to the defense of Greece and Turkey. On March 12, before
a joint session of Congress, he set forth what has become known as the Truman Doctrine. The doctrine marked the reversal of
American foreign policy, from cooperation with the Soviet Union to "containment" of Soviet power.

The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress.
The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.

One aspect of the present situation which I wish to present to you at this time for your consideration and decision concerns
Greece and Turkey. The United States has received from the Greek government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance.
Preliminary reports from the American economic mission now in Greece and reports from the American ambassador in Greece corroborate
the statement of the Greek government that assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation.

I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of the Greek government.

Greece is not a rich country. Lack of sufficient natural resources has always forced the Greek people to work hard to make
both ends meet. Since 1940, this industrious and peace-loving country has suffered invasion, four years of cruel enemy occupation,
and bitter internal strife.

When forces of liberation entered Greece they found that the retreating Germans had destroyed virtually all the railways,
roads, port facilities, communications, and merchant marine. More than a thousand villages had been burned. Eighty-five percent
of the children were tubercular. Livestock, poultry, and draft animals had almost disappeared. Inflation had wiped out practically
all savings. As a result of these tragic conditions, a militant minority, exploiting human want and misery, was able to create
political chaos which, until now, has made economic recovery impossible.

Greece is today without funds to finance the importation of those goods which are essential to bare subsistence. Under these
circumstances the people of Greece cannot make progress in solving their problems of reconstruction. Greece is in desperate
need of financial and economic assistance to enable it to resume purchases of food, clothing, fuel, and seeds. These are indispensable
for the subsistence of its people and are obtainable only from abroad. Greece must have help to import the goods necessary
to restore internal order and security so essential for economic and political recovery.

The Greek government has also asked for the assistance of experienced American administrators, economists, and technicians
to insure that the financial and other aid given to Greece shall be used effectively in creating a stable and self-sustaining
economy and in improving its public administration.

The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by
Communists, who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries. A commission
appointed by the United Nations Security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece and alleged
border violations along the frontier between Greece, on the one hand, and Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, on the other.
Meanwhile, the Greek government is unable to cope with the situation. The Greek Army is small and poorly equipped. It needs
supplies and equipment if it is to restore the authority of the government throughout Greek territory.

Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy. The United States must supply
this assistance. We have already extended to Greece certain types of relief and economic aid but these are inadequate. There
is no other country to which democratic Greece can turn. No other nation is willing and able to provide the necessary support
for a democratic Greek government.

The British government, which has been helping Greece, can give no further financial or economic aid after March 31. Great
Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its commitments in several parts of the world, including
Greece.

We have considered how the United Nations might assist in this crisis. But the situation is an urgent one requiring immediate
action, and the United Nations and its related organizations are not in a position to extend help of the kind that is required.

It is important to note that the Greek government has asked for our aid in utilizing effectively the financial and other assistance
we may give to Greece and in improving its public administration. It is of the utmost importance that we supervise the use
of any funds made available to Greece in such a manner that each dollar spent will count toward making Greece self-supporting
and will help to build an economy in which a healthy democracy can flourish.

No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under
democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected. The government of Greece is not perfect. Nevertheless, it represents
85 percent of the members of the Greek Parliament who were chosen in an election last year. Foreign observers, including 692
Americans, considered this election to be a fair expression of the views of the Greek people.

The Greek government has been operating in an atmosphere of chaos and extremism. It has made mistakes. The extension of aid
by this country does not mean that the United States condones everything that the Greek government has done or will do. We
have condemned in the past, and we condemn now, extremist measures of the right or the left. We have in the past advised tolerance,
and we advise tolerance now.

Greece's neighbor, Turkey, also deserves our attention. The future of Turkey as an independent and economically sound state
is clearly no less important to the freedom-loving peoples of the world than the future of Greece. The circumstances in which
Turkey finds itself today are considerably different from those of Greece. Turkey has been spared the disasters that have
beset Greece. And during the war, the United States and Great Britain furnished Turkey with material aid. Nevertheless, Turkey
now needs our support.

Since the war, Turkey has sought financial assistance from Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of effecting
that modernization necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity. That integrity is essential to the preservation
of order in the Middle East.

The British government has informed us that, owing to its own difficulties, it can no longer extend financial or economic
aid to Turkey. As in the case of Greece, if Turkey is to have the assistance it needs, the United States must supply it. We
are the only country able to provide that help.

I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall
discuss these implications with you at this time.

One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other
nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and
Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will and their way of life upon other nations.

To insure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing
the United Nations. The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions
and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more
than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the
foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will.
The government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta
Agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar
developments.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too
often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government,
free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The
second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression,
a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in
their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid, which is essential to economic
stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the
Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free
and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter
of the United Nations.

It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance
in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey,
would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East. Moreover, the
disappearance of Greece as an independent state would have a profound effect upon those countries in Europe whose peoples
are struggling against great difficulties to maintain their freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages
of war.

It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds, should lose
that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous
not only for them but for the world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving
to maintain their freedom and independence.

Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far-reaching to the West as well as to the
East. We must take immediate and resolute action.

I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of $400 million for the
period ending June 30, 1948. In requesting these funds, I have taken into consideration the maximum amount of relief assistance
which would be furnished to Greece out of the $350 million which I recently requested that the Congress authorize for the
prevention of starvation and suffering in countries devastated by the war.

In addition to funds, I ask the Congress to authorize the detail of American civilian and military personnel to Greece and
Turkey, at the request of those countries, to assist in the tasks of reconstruction, and for the purpose of supervising the
use of such financial and material assistance as may be furnished. I recommend that authority also be provided for the instruction
and training of selected Greek and Turkish personnel.

Finally, I ask that the Congress provide authority which will permit the speediest and most effective use, in terms of needed
commodities, supplies, and equipment, of such funds as may be authorized.

If further funds, or further authority, should be needed for purposes indicated in this message, I shall not hesitate to bring
the situation before the Congress. On this subject the executive and legislative branches of the government must work together.

This is a serious course upon which we embark. I would not recommend it except that the alternative is much more serious.

The United States contributed $341 billion toward winning World War II. This is an investment in world freedom and world peace.
The assistance that I am recommending for Greece and Turkey amounts to little more than one-tenth of 1 percent of this investment.
It is only common sense that we should safeguard this investment and make sure that it was not in vain.

The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife.
They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive.

The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may
endanger the peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation.

Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of events. I am confident that the Congress will face
these responsibilities squarely.

Because a republican form of government had been coupled in the United States with unprecedented economic, social, and scientific
advances, many Americans were certain that similar results would obtain wherever there was a free government. They therefore
applauded any attempt to overthrow despotism elsewhere in the world. But the expression of such sentiments was not always
in accord with America's traditional policy of nonintervention in the affairs of other nations. President Millard Fillmore
pointed this out in the following portion of his first annual message to Congress, December 2, 1850.

Being suddenly called in the midst of the last session of Congress by a painful dispensation of Divine Providence to the responsible
station which I now hold, I contented myself with such communications to the legislature as the exigency of the moment seemed
to require. The country was shrouded in mourning for the loss of its venerable chief magistrate and all hearts were penetrated
with grief. Neither the time nor the occasion appeared to require or to justify on my part any general expression of political
opinions or any announcement of the principles which would govern me in the discharge of the duties to the performance of
which I had been so unexpectedly called. I trust, therefore, that it may not be deemed inappropriate if I avail myself of
this opportunity of the reassembling of Congress to make known my sentiments in a general manner in regard to the policy which
ought to be pursued by the government, both in its intercourse with foreign nations and its management and administration
of internal affairs.

Nations, like individuals in a state of nature, are equal and independent, possessing certain rights and owing certain duties
to each other, arising from their necessary and unavoidable relations; which rights and duties there is no common human authority
to protect and enforce. Still, they are rights and duties, binding in morals, in conscience, and in honor; although there
is no tribunal to which an injured party can appeal but the disinterested judgment of mankind and, ultimately, the arbitrament
of the sword.

Among the acknowledged rights of nations is that which each possesses of establishing that form of government which it may
deem most conducive to the happiness and prosperity of its own citizens, of changing that form as circumstances may require,
and of managing its internal affairs according to its own will. The people of the United States claim this right for themselves,
and they readily concede it to others. Hence it becomes an imperative duty not to interfere in the government or internal
policy of other nations; and although we may sympathize with the unfortunate or the oppressed everywhere in their struggles
for freedom, our principles forbid us from taking any part in such foreign contests.

We make no wars to promote or to prevent successions to thrones, to maintain any theory of a balance of power, or to suppress
the actual government which any country chooses to establish for itself. We instigate no revolutions nor suffer any hostile
military expeditions to be fitted out in the United States to invade the territory or provinces of a friendly nation. The
great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application. We should act toward other
nations as we wish them to act toward us, and justice and conscience should form the rule of conduct between governments,
instead of mere power, self-interest, or the desire of aggrandizement.

To maintain a strict neutrality in foreign wars, to cultivate friendly relations, to reciprocate every noble and generous
act, and to perform punctually and scrupulously every treaty obligation--these are the duties which we owe to other states,
and by the performance of which we best entitle ourselves to like treatment from them; or, if that, in any case, be refused,
we can enforce our own rights with justice and a clear conscience.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 5, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 77-94.

The Monroe Doctrine, in Monroe's handwriting, 1823
The Granger Collection, New York City

The Monroe Doctrine comprised some general remarks on foreign policy that President James Monroe included in his annual message
to Congress on December 2, 1823. The first draft of the message included a reproof to the French for their invasion of Spain,
an acknowledgment of Greek independence in the revolt against Turkey, and some further indications of American concern in
European affairs. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued for the better part of two days against such expressions, which were finally eliminated from the message. "The ground
that I wish to take," Adams noted in his Diary, "is that of earnest remonstrance against the interference of the European powers by force in South America, but to disclaim
all interference on our part with Europe; to make an American cause, and adhere inflexibly to that." Despite the ambiguities
that have surrounded the application of this policy since its inception, one theme was clear: There were two worlds, the Old
and the New; each must lead its separate existence, always aware of a bond between them, but never intervening in the affairs
of the other.

A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought
to be particularly necessary. . . .

At the proposal of the Russian Imperial government, made through the minister of the emperor residing here, full power and
instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation
the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal had been
made by His Imperial Majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of the
United States has been desirous, by this friendly proceeding, of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached
to the friendship of the emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his government.

In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion
has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved,
that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not
to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. . . .

It was stated at the commencement of the last session that great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the
condition of the people of those countries and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely
be remarked that the result has been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the
globe with which we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested
spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of
their fellowmen on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have
never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced
that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense.

With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious
to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect
from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments; and to the defense
of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened
citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor
and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt
on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.

With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with
the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration
and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling
in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition
toward the United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their
recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment
of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable
to their security.

The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be
adduced than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed
by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a
question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote, and
surely none more so than the United States.

Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of
the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider
the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those
relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries
from none. But in regard to those continents, circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that
the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and
happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord.

It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to
the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new governments, and their distance from each other, it must be
obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves,
in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 2, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 207-220.

Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification
was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country,
whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection,
and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years-a retreat which was rendered
every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions
in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to
which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful
scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature
and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict
of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance
by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful
remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens,
and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me,
my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of
the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would
be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the
universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction
may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for
these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions
allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that
it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can
be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.
Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some
token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the
tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be
compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with
an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present
crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that
there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration
such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from
entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which,
in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those
circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular
measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to
devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices
or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch
over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be
laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all
the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect
with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established
than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty
and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and
felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that
disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred
fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally,
staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the
occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature
of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead
of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities,
I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that
whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which
ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the
public harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be impregnably fortified
or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the foregoing observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It
concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country,
then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should
renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under the impressions
which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably
included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for
the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good
may be thought to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take
my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that,
since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions
for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their
happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise
measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

The Republican Party in 1920 turned its back on a number of strong contenders and--as his friend Harry Daugherty had predicted
as early as February--picked the relatively unknown Warren Gamaliel Harding of Ohio as its presidential candidate. The Republicans,
with Congress once more in their hands, desired to reestablish the authority of the legislative branch after eight years of
Democrat Woodrow Wilson; and they furthermore sensed a deep longing on the part of the American people for an end to international
involvements and a “return to normalcy.” Harding was just the man, and he won a resounding victory after a “front porch” campaign
similar to fellow Ohioan William McKinley's 20 years before. In a speech to a special session of Congress on April 12, 1921,
Harding described the direction in which he thought the country should go during the next four years. Passages from the speech
are reprinted here.

Mr. Speaker, Vice-President, and Members of the Congress:

You have been called in extraordinary session to give your consideration to national problems far too pressing to be long
neglected. We face our tasks of legislation and administration amid conditions as difficult as our government has ever contemplated.
Under our political system the people of the United States have charged the new Congress and the new administration with the
solution--the readjustments, reconstruction, and restoration which must follow in the wake of war.

It may be regretted that we were so illy prepared for war's aftermath, so little made ready to return to the ways of peace,
but we are not to be discouraged. Indeed, we must be the more firmly resolved to undertake our work with high hope, and invite
every factor in our citizenship to join in the effort to find our normal, onward way again.

The American people have appraised the situation, and, with that tolerance and patience which go with understanding, they
will give to us the influence of deliberate public opinion which ultimately becomes the edict of any popular government. They
are measuring some of the stern necessities, and will join in the give and take which is so essential to firm reestablishment.

First in mind must be the solution of our problems at home, even though some phases of them are inseparably linked with our
foreign relations. The surest procedure in every government is to put its own house in order. I know of no more pressing problem
at home than to restrict our national expenditures within the limits of our national income and at the same time measurably
lift the burdens of war taxation from the shoulders of the American people.

One cannot be unmindful that economy is a much-employed cry, most frequently stressed in preelection appeals, but it is ours
to make it an outstanding and ever impelling purpose in both legislation and administration. The unrestrained tendency to
heedless expenditure and the attending growth of public indebtedness, extending from federal authority to that of state and
municipality and including the smallest political subdivision, constitute the most dangerous phase of government today. The
nation cannot restrain except in its own activities, but it can be exemplar in a wholesome reversal.

The staggering load of war debt must be cared for in orderly funding and gradual liquidation. We shall hasten the solution
and aid effectively in lifting the tax burdens if we strike resolutely at expenditure. It is far more easily said than done.
In the fever of war our expenditures were so little questioned, the emergency was so impelling, appropriation was so unimpeded
that we little noted millions and counted the Treasury inexhaustible. It will strengthen our resolution if we ever keep in
mind that a continuation of such a course means inevitable disaster....

The most substantial relief from the tax burden must come for the present from the readjustment of internal taxes, and the
revision or repeal of those taxes which have become unproductive and are so artificial and burdensome as to defeat their own
purpose. A prompt and thoroughgoing revision of the internal tax laws, made with due regard to the protection of the revenues,
is, in my judgment, a requisite to the revival of business activity in this country. It is earnestly hoped, therefore, that
the Congress will be able to enact without delay a revision of the revenue laws and such emergency tariff measures as are
necessary to protect American trade and industry.

It is of less concern whether internal taxation or tariff revision shall come first than has been popularly imagined because
we must do both, but the practical course for earliest accomplishment will readily suggest itself to the Congress. We are
committed to the repeal of the excess-profits tax and the abolition of inequities and unjustifiable exasperations in the present
system.

The country does not expect and will not approve a shifting of burdens. It is more interested in wiping out the necessity
for imposing them and eliminating confusion and cost in the collection.

The urgency for an instant tariff enactment, emergency in character and understood by our people that it is for the emergency
only, cannot be too much emphasized. I believe in the protection of American industry, and it is our purpose to prosper America
first. The privileges of the American market to the foreign producer are offered too cheaply today, and the effect on much
of our own productivity is the destruction of our self-reliance, which is the foundation of the independence and good fortune
of our people. Moreover, imports should pay their fair share of our cost of government.

One who values American prosperity and maintained American standards of wage and living can have no sympathy with the proposal
that easy entry and the flood of imports will cheapen our costs of living. It is more likely to destroy our capacity to buy.
Today, American agriculture is menaced and its products are down to prewar normals, yet we are endangering our fundamental
industry through the high cost of transportation from farm to market and through the influx of foreign farm products, because
we offer, essentially unprotected, the best market in the world. It would be better to err in protecting our basic food industry
than paralyze our farm activities in the world struggle for restored exchanges....

A very important matter is the establishment of the government's business on a business basis. There was toleration of the
easy-going, unsystematic method of handling our fiscal affairs, when indirect taxation held the public unmindful of the federal
burden. But there is knowledge of the high cost of government today, and high cost of living is inseparably linked with high
cost of government. There can be no complete correction of the high living cost until government's cost is notably reduced.

Let me most heartily commend the enactment of legislation providing for the national budget system. Congress has already recorded
its belief in the budget. It will be a very great satisfaction to know of its early enactment, so that it may be employed
in establishing the economies and business methods so essential to the minimum of expenditure.

I have said to the people we meant to have less of government in business as well as more business in government. It is well
to have it understood that business has a right to pursue its normal, legitimate, and righteous way unimpeded, and it ought
have no call to meet government competition where all risk is borne by the public Treasury. There is no challenge to honest
and lawful business success. But government approval of fortunate, untrammeled business does not mean toleration of restraint
of trade or of maintained prices by unnatural methods. It is well to have legitimate business understand that a just government,
mindful of the interests of all the people, has a right to expect the cooperation of that legitimate business in stamping
out the practices which add to unrest and inspire restrictive legislation. Anxious as we are to restore the onward flow of
business, it is fair to combine assurance and warning in one utterance....

It is proper to invite your attention to the importance of the question of radio communication and cables. To meet strategic,
commercial, and political needs, active encouragement should be given to the extension of American-owned and operated cable
and radio services. Between the United States and its possessions there should be ample communication facilities providing
direct services at reasonable rates. Between the United States and other countries, not only should there be adequate facilities
but these should be, so far as practicable, direct and free from foreign intermediation. Friendly cooperation should be extended
to international efforts aimed at encouraging improvement of international communication facilities and designed to further
the exchange of messages. Private monopolies tending to prevent the development of needed facilities should be prohibited.
Government-owned facilities, wherever possible without unduly interfering with private enterprise or government needs, should
be made available for general uses.

Particularly desirable is the provision of ample cable and radio services at reasonable rates for the transmission of press
matter, so that the American reader may receive a wide range of news and the foreign reader receive full accounts of American
activities. The daily press of all countries may well be put in position to contribute to international understandings by
the publication of interesting foreign news.

Practical experience demonstrates the need for effective regulation of both domestic and international radio operation if
this newer means of intercommunication is to be fully utilized. Especially needful is the provision of ample radio facilities
for those services where radio only can be used, such as communication with ships at sea, with aircraft, and with out-of-the-way
places. International communication by cable and radio requires cooperation between the powers concerned. Whatever the degree
of control deemed advisable within the United States, government licensing of cable landings and of radio stations transmitting
and receiving international traffic seems necessary for the protection of American interests and for the securing of satisfactory
reciprocal privileges.

Aviation is inseparable from either the Army or the Navy, and the government must, in the interests of national defense, encourage
its development for military and civil purposes. The encouragement of the civil development of aeronautics is especially desirable
as relieving the government largely of the expense of development, and of maintenance of an industry, now almost entirely
borne by the government through appropriations for the military, naval, and postal air services. The air mail service is an
important initial step in the direction of commercial aviation.

It has become a pressing duty of the federal government to provide for the regulation of air navigation; otherwise, independent
and conflicting legislation will be enacted by the various states which will hamper the development of aviation. The National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, in a special report on this subject, has recommended the establishment of a Bureau of
Aeronautics in the Department of Commerce for the federal regulation of air navigation, which recommendation ought to have
legislative approval....

During the recent political canvass the proposal was made that a Department of Public Welfare should be created. It was endorsed
and commended so strongly that I venture to call it to your attention and to suggest favorable legislative consideration.

Government's obligation affirmatively to encourage development of the highest and most efficient type of citizenship is modernly
accepted, almost universally. Government rests upon the body of citizenship; it cannot maintain itself on a level that keeps
it out of touch and understanding with the community it serves. Enlightened governments everywhere recognize this and are
giving their recognition effect in policies and programs. Certainly no government is more desirous than our own to reflect
the human attitude, the purpose of making better citizens--physically, intellectually, spiritually. To this end I am convinced
that such a department in the government would be of real value. It could be made to crystallize much of rather vague generalization
about social justice into solid accomplishment. Events of recent years have profoundly impressed thinking people with the
need to recognize new social forces and evolutions, to equip our citizens for dealing rightly with problems of life and social
order.

In the realms of education, public health, sanitation, conditions of workers in industry, child welfare, proper amusement
and recreation, the elimination of social vice, and many other subjects, the government has already undertaken a considerable
range of activities....

Somewhat related to the foregoing human problems is the race question. Congress ought to wipe the stain of barbaric lynching
from the banners of a free and orderly, representative democracy. We face the fact that many millions of people of African
descent are numbered among our population, and that in a number of states they constitute a very large proportion of the total
population. It is unnecessary to recount the difficulties incident to this condition, nor to emphasize the fact that it is
a condition which cannot be removed. There has been suggestion, however, that some of its difficulties might be ameliorated
by a humane and enlightened consideration of it, a study of its many aspects, and an effort to formulate, if not a policy,
at least a national attitude of mind calculated to bring about the most satisfactory possible adjustment of relations between
the races, and of each race to the national life. One proposal is the creation of a commission embracing representatives of
both races, to study and report on the entire subject. The proposal has real merit. I am convinced that in mutual tolerance,
understanding, charity, recognition of the interdependence of the races, and the maintenance of the rights of citizenship
lies the road to righteous adjustment....

Nearly two and a half years ago the World War came to an end, and yet we find ourselves today in the technical state of war,
though actually at peace, while Europe is at technical peace, far from tranquillity and little progressed toward the hoped-for
restoration. It ill becomes us to express impatience that the European belligerents are not yet in full agreement, when we
ourselves have been unable to bring constituted authority into accord in our own relations to the formally proclaimed peace.

Little avails in reciting the causes of delay in Europe or our own failure to agree. But there is no longer excuse for uncertainties
respecting some phases of our foreign relationship. In the existing League of Nations, world-governing with its superpowers,
this republic will have no part. There can be no misinterpretation, and there will be no betrayal of the deliberate expression
of the American people in the recent election; and, settled in our decision for ourselves, it is only fair to say to the world
in general, and to our associates in war in particular, that the League Covenant can have no sanction by us. The aim to associate
nations to prevent war, preserve peace, and promote civilization our people most cordially applauded. We yearned for this
new instrument of justice, but we can have no part in a committal to an agency of force in unknown contingencies; we can recognize
no superauthority.

Manifestly, the highest purpose of the League of Nations was defeated in linking it with the treaty of peace and making it
the enforcing agency of the victors of the war. International association for permanent peace must be conceived solely as
an instrumentality of justice, unassociated with the passions of yesterday, and not so constituted as to attempt the dual
functions of a political instrument of the conquerors and of an agency of peace. There can be no prosperity for the fundamental
purposes sought to be achieved by any such association so long as it is an organ of any particular treaty or committed to
the attainment of the special aims of any nation or group of nations.

The American aspiration, indeed, the world aspiration, was an association of nations, based upon the application of justice
and right, binding us in conference and cooperation for the prevention of war and pointing the way to a higher civilization
and international fraternity in which all the world might share. In rejecting the League Covenant and uttering that rejection
to our own people and to the world, we make no surrender of our hope and aim for an association to promote peace in which
we would most heartily join. We wish it to be conceived in peace and dedicated to peace, and will relinquish no effort to
bring the nations of the world into such fellowship, not in the surrender of national sovereignty but rejoicing in a nobler
exercise of it in the advancement of human activities, amid the compensations of peaceful achievement....

It would be unwise to undertake to make a statement of future policy with respect to European affairs in such a declaration
of a state of peace. In correcting the failure of the executive, in negotiating the most important treaty in the history of
the nation, to recognize the constitutional powers of the Senate, we would go to the other extreme, equally objectionable,
if Congress or the Senate should assume the function of the executive. Our highest duty is the preservation of the constituted
powers of each and the promotion of the spirit of cooperation so essential to our common welfare.

It would be idle to declare for separate treaties of peace with the Central Powers on the assumption that these alone would
be adequate, because the situation is so involved that our peace engagements cannot ignore the Old World relationship and
the settlements already effected, nor is it desirable to do so in preserving our own rights and contracting our future relationships.
The wiser course would seem to be the acceptance of the confirmation of our rights and interests as already provided and to
engage under the existing treaty, assuming, of course, that this can be satisfactorily accomplished by such explicit reservations
and modifications as will secure our absolute freedom from inadvisable commitments and safeguard all our essential interests.

Neither Congress nor the people needs my assurance that a request to negotiate needed treaties of peace would be as superfluous
and unnecessary as it is technically ineffective, and I know in my own heart there is none who would wish to embarrass the
executive in the performance of his duty when we are all so eager to turn disappointment and delay into gratifying accomplishment.

Problems relating to our foreign relations bear upon the present and the future and are of such a nature that the all-important
future must be deliberately considered with greater concern than mere immediate relief from unhappy conditions. We have witnessed,
yea, we have participated in, the supremely tragic episode of war, but our deeper concern is in the continuing life of nations
and the development of civilization.

We must not allow our vision to be impaired by the conflict among ourselves. The weariness at home and the disappointment
to the world have been compensated in the proof that this republic will surrender none of the heritage of nationality, but
our rights in international relationship have to be asserted; they require establishment in compacts of amity; our part in
readjustment and restoration cannot be ignored, and must be defined.

With the supergoverning League definitely rejected and with the world so informed, and with the status of peace proclaimed
at home, we may proceed to negotiate the covenanted relationships so essential to the recognition of all the rights everywhere
of our own nation and play our full part in joining the peoples of the world in the pursuits of peace once more. Our obligations
in effecting European tranquillity, because of war's involvements, are not less impelling than our part in the war itself.
This restoration must be wrought before the human procession can go onward again. We can be helpful because we are moved by
no hatreds and harbor no fears. Helpfulness does not mean entanglement, and participation in economic adjustments does not
mean sponsorship for treaty commitments which do not concern us and in which we will have no part.

In an all-impelling wish to do the most and best for our own republic and maintain its high place among nations and at the
same time make the fullest offering of justice to them, I shall invite in the most practical way the advice of the Senate,
after acquainting it with all the conditions to be met and obligations to be discharged, along with our own rights to be safeguarded.
Prudence in making the program and confident cooperation in making it effective cannot lead us far astray. We can render no
effective service to humanity until we prove anew our own capacity for cooperation in the coordination of powers contemplated
in the Constitution, and no covenants which ignore our associations in the war can be made for the future. More, no helpful
society of nations can be founded on justice and committed to peace until the covenants reestablishing peace are sealed by
the nations which were at war.

To such accomplishment--to the complete reestablishment of peace and its contracted relationships, to the realization of our
aspirations for nations associated for world helpfulness without world government, for world stability on which humanity's
hopes are founded--we shall address ourselves, fully mindful of the high privilege and the paramount duty of the United States
in this critical period of the world.

President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet
common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.

As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.

And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace. I am honored and humbled to stand
here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.

We have a place, all of us, in a long story--a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new
world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom,
the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.

It is the American story--a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that
no insignificant person was ever born.

Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws. And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes
delayed, we must follow no other course.

Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon
the wind, taking root in many nations.

Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do
not own, a trust we bear and pass along. And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.

While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country. The ambitions of some
Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our differences
run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country.

We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every
generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.

I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image.

And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift
us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen
must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.

Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of
us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness.

Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear
small.

But the stakes for America are never small. If our country does not lead the cause of freedom, it will not be led. If we do
not turn the hearts of children toward knowledge and character, we will lose their gifts and undermine their idealism. If
we permit our economy to drift and decline, the vulnerable will suffer most.

We must live up to the calling we share. Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over
cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.

America, at its best, is also courageous.

Our national courage has been clear in times of depression and war, when defending common dangers defined our common good.
Now we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemn us. We must show courage in a time
of blessing by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations.

Together, we will reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives.

We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent. And we will
reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans.

We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors. The enemies of liberty and our
country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power
that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression
and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.

America, at its best, is compassionate. In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy
of our nation's promise.

And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault. Abandonment and abuse are not acts
of God, they are failures of love.

And the proliferation of prisons, however necessary, is no substitute for hope and order in our souls.

Where there is suffering, there is duty. Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities.
And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless.

Government has great responsibilities for public safety and public health, for civil rights and common schools. Yet compassion
is the work of a nation, not just a government.

And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer. Church and charity,
synagogue and mosque lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and in our laws.

Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do. And I can pledge our nation to a goal:
When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.

America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.

Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it
brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children
and community are the commitments that set us free.

Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, unhonored
acts of decency which give direction to our freedom.

Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small
things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.

I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage,
to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.

In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.

What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed
reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not
spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.

Americans are generous and strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves.
When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can
stand against it.

After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson: “We know the race
is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?”

Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration. The years and changes accumulate. But the themes of this
day he would know: our nation's grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.

We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and
our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.

Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today, to make our country more just and generous, to
affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.

This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.

Proceeding, fellow-citizens, to that qualification which the Constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again
conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of confidence from my fellow-citizens
at large, and the zeal with which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just expectations.

On taking this station on a former occasion I declared the principles on which I believed it my duty to administer the affairs
of our Commonwealth. My conscience tells me I have on every occasion acted up to that declaration according to its obvious
import and to the understanding of every candid mind.

In the transaction of your foreign affairs we have endeavored to cultivate the friendship of all nations, and especially of
those with which we have the most important relations. We have done them justice on all occasions, favored where favor was
lawful, and cherished mutual interests and intercourse on fair and equal terms. We are firmly convinced, and we act on that
conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our
moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments
and wars to bridle others.

At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless
establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers and opening
our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which once entered is scarcely to be
restrained from reaching successively every article of property and produce. If among these taxes some minor ones fell which
had not been inconvenient, it was because their amount would not have paid the officers who collected them, and because, if
they had any merit, the State authorities might adopt them instead of others less approved.

The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries
to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile
citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a
tax gatherer of the United States? These contributions enable us to support the current expenses of the Government, to fulfill
contracts with foreign nations, to extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend those limits, and to apply
such a surplus to our public debts as places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption once effected the
revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the States and a corresponding amendment of the Constitution,
be applied in time of peace to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each State.
In time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased
population and consumption, and aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expenses
of the year without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. War will
then be but a suspension of useful works, and a return to a state of peace, a return to the progress of improvement.

I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to extend our limits, but that extension may possibly
pay for itself before we are called on, and in the meantime may keep down the accruing interest; in all events, it will replace
the advances we shall have made. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana had been disapproved by some from a candid apprehension
that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle
may operate effectively? The larger our association the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not
better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another
family? With which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly intercourse?

In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of
the General Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it, but
have left them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged
by the several religious societies.

The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with
the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left
them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on these shores;
without power to divert or habits to contend against it, they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now
reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts;
to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence and to prepare them in
time for that state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally
furnished them with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of first
necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves.

But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their present course of life, to induce them to exercise their
reason, follow its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances have powerful obstacles to encounter;
they are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the influence of interested
and crafty individuals among them who feel themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become nothing
in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did
must be done through all time; that reason is a false guide, and to advance under its counsel in their physical, moral, or
political condition is perilous innovation; that their duty is to remain as their Creator made them, ignorance being safety
and knowledge full of danger; in short, my friends, among them also is seen the action and counteraction of good sense and
of bigotry; they too have their antiphilosophists who find an interest in keeping things in their present state, who dread
reformation, and exert all their faculties to maintain the ascendancy of habit over the duty of improving our reason and obeying
its mandates.

In giving these outlines I do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in
the first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and
strengthen the public measures. It is due to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves those to whom
they confide the legislative duties. It is due to the zeal and wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations
of public happiness in wholesome laws, the execution of which alone remains for others, and it is due to the able and faithful
auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated them with me in the executive functions.

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us,
charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and
science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety. They might, indeed,
have been corrected by the wholesome punishments reserved to and provided by the laws of the several States against falsehood
and defamation, but public duties more urgent press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have therefore been
left to find their punishment in the public indignation.

Nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided
by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth-whether a government conducting itself in the true
spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness,
can be written down by falsehood and defamation. The experiment has been tried; you have witnessed the scene; our fellow-citizens
looked on, cool and collected; they saw the latent source from which these outrages proceeded; they gathered around their
public functionaries, and when the Constitution called them to the decision by suffrage, they pronounced their verdict, honorable
to those who had served them and consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of
his own affairs.

No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications should not be
enforced; he who has time renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity in reforming these abuses by the salutary
coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against
false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment
will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between
the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule
would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion.

Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally as auguring harmony and happiness to our future course, I
offer to our country sincere congratulations. With those, too, not yet rallied to the same point the disposition to do so
is gaining strength; facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them, and our doubting brethren will at length see that
the mass of their fellow-citizens with whom they can not yet resolve to act as to principles and measures, think as they think
and desire what they desire; that our wish as well as theirs is that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public
good, that peace be cultivated, civil and religious liberty unassailed, law and order preserved, equality of rights maintained,
and that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his father's. When
satisfied of these views it is not in human nature that they should not approve and support them. In the meantime let us cherish
them with patient affection, let us do them justice, and more than justice, in all competitions of interest; and we need not
doubt that truth, reason, and their own interests will at length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country,
and will complete that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony and the benefit of all its
strength.

I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again called me, and shall proceed in the spirit of those
principles which they have approved. I fear not that any motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion
which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice, but the weaknesses of human nature and the limits of my own understanding
will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. I shall need, therefore, all the indulgence which I
have heretofore experienced from my constituents; the want of it will certainly not lessen with increasing years. I shall
need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and
planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence
and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will
so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result
in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.

During September 1974, President Ford made two major addresses on the problems of the energy crisis and the use of the world's
resources. He addressed the opening of the 29th session of the United Nations General Assembly on the 18th, and he spoke to
the World Energy Conference in Detroit on the 23rd. His remarks brought forth immediate and somewhat vehement disagreements
from many of the world's leaders, especially in the oil-producing countries and in the "Third World." They considered his statements about oil prices versus American food export policy to be little more than veiled threats.
One of those who responded at length to the President's U.N. speech was Carlos Andres Pérez, the President of Venezuela. In an open letter published in many newspapers, Pérez stated the case of the Third World nations
against the industrialized countries. Most of Ford's U.N. address is reprinted here.

The nations in this hall are united by a deep concern for peace. We are united as well by our desire to ensure a better life
for all people.

Today, the economy of the world is under unprecedented stress. We need new approaches to international cooperation to respond
effectively to the problems that we face. Developing and developed countries, market and nonmarket countries--we are all a
part of one interdependent economic system.

The food and oil crises demonstrate the extent of our interdependence. Many developing nations need the food surplus of a
few developed nations. And many industrialized nations need the oil production of a few developing nations.

Energy is required to produce food and food to produce energy--and both to provide a decent life for everyone. The problems
of food and energy can be resolved on the basis of cooperation, or can, I should say, be made unmanageable on the basis of
confrontation. Runaway inflation, propelled by food and oil price increases, is an early warning signal to all of us.

Let us not delude ourselves. Failure to cooperate on oil and food and inflation could spell disaster for every nation represented
in this room. The United Nations must not and need not allow this to occur. A global strategy for food and energy is urgently
required.

The United States believes four principles should guide a global approach:

First, all nations must substantially increase production. Just to maintain the present standards of living the world must
almost double its output of food and energy to match the expected increase in the world's population by the end of this century.
To meet aspirations for a better life, production will have to expand at a significantly faster rate than population growth.

Second, all nations must seek to achieve a level of prices which not only provides an incentive to producers but which consumers
can afford. It should now be clear that the developed nations are not the only countries which demand and receive an adequate
return for their goods. But it should also be clear that by confronting consumers with production restrictions, artificial
pricing, and the prospect of ultimate bankruptcy, producers will eventually become the victims of their own actions.

Third, all nations must avoid the abuse of man's fundamental needs for the sake of narrow national or bloc advantage. The
attempt by any nation to use one commodity for political purposes will inevitably tempt other countries to use their commodities
for their own purposes.

Fourth, the nations of the world must assure that the poorest among us are not overwhelmed by rising prices of the imports
necessary for their survival. The traditional aid donors and the increasingly wealthy oil producers must join in this effort.

The United States recognizes the special responsibility we bear as the world's largest producer of food. That is why Secretary
of State Kissinger proposed from this very podium last year a world food conference to define a global food policy. And that
is one reason why we have removed domestic restrictions on food production in the United States.

It has not been our policy to use food as a political weapon, despite the oil embargo and recent oil prices and production
decisions.

It would be tempting for the United States--beset by inflation and soaring energy prices--to turn a deaf ear to external appeals
for food assistance, or to respond with internal appeals for export controls. But however difficult our own economic situation,
we recognize that the plight of others is worse.

Americans have always responded to human emergencies in the past, and we respond again here today. In response to Secretary
General Waldheim's appeal and to help meet the long-term challenge in food, I reiterate: To help developing nations realize
their aspirations to grow more of their own food, the United States will substantially increase its assistance to agricultural
production programs in other countries.

Next, to ensure that the survival of millions of our fellow men does not depend upon the vagaries of weather, the United States
is prepared to join in a worldwide effort to negotiate, establish, and maintain an international system of food reserves.
This system will work best if each nation is made responsible for managing the reserves that it will have available.

Finally, to make certain that the more immediate needs for food are met this year, the United States will not only maintain
the amount it spends for food shipments to nations in need but it will increase this amount this year.

Thus, the United States is striving to help define and help contribute to a cooperative global policy to meet man's immediate
and long-term need for food. We will set forth our comprehensive proposals at the World Food Conference in November.

Now is the time for oil producers to define their conception of a global policy on energy to meet the growing need and to
do this without imposing unacceptable burdens on the international monetary and trade system. A world of economic confrontation
cannot be a world of political cooperation.

If we fail to satisfy man's fundamental needs for energy and food, we face a threat not just to our aspirations for a better
life for all our peoples but to our hopes for a more stable and a more peaceful world. By working together to overcome our
common problems, mankind can turn from fear towards hope.

From the time of the founding of the United Nations, America volunteered to help nations in need, frequently as the main benefactor.
We were able to do it. We were glad to do it. But as new economic forces alter and reshape today's complex world, no nation
can be expected to feed all the world's hungry peoples.

Fortunately, however, many nations are increasingly able to help. And I call on them to join with us as truly united nations
in the struggle to produce, to provide more food at lower prices for the hungry and, in general, a better life for the needy
of this world.

America will continue to do more than its share. But there are realistic limits to our capacities. There is no limit, however,
to our determination to act in concert with other nations to fulfill the vision of the United Nations Charter, to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war, and to promote social progress and better standards, better standards of life in a larger
freedom.

Andrew Johnson: Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon for the Confederate States

On May 29, 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation of amnesty and pardon for the citizens of those Confederate states
that had not been restored under Lincoln's Reconstruction policy. Generally in accord with Lincoln's amnesty proclamation of December 8, 1863, Johnson's proclamation differed on one
major point. A lifelong supporter of small farmers and the lower classes in general, he specifically excluded the wealthy
classes from the benefits of the proclamation.

Whereas, the President of the United States, on the 8th day of December, A.D. 1863, and on the 26th day of March, A.D. 1864, did,
with the object to suppress the existing rebellion, to induce all persons to return to their loyalty, and to restore the authority
of the United States, issue proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to certain persons who had, directly or by implication,
participated in the said rebellion; and

Whereas, many persons who had so engaged in said rebellion have, since the issuance of said proclamations, failed or neglected to
take the benefits offered thereby; and

Whereas, many persons who have been justly deprived of all claim to amnesty and pardon thereunder by reason of their participation,
directly or by implication, in said rebellion and continued hostility to the government of the United States since the date
of said proclamations, now desire to apply for and obtain amnesty and pardon.

To the end, therefore, that the authority of the government of the United States may be restored and that peace, order, and freedom may
be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons
who have, directly or indirectly, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon,
with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves and except in cases where legal proceedings under the laws
of the United States providing for the confiscation of property of persons engaged in rebellion have been instituted; but
upon the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe the following oath (or affirmation) and
thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate, and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation and shall
be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:

I, ------ ------, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will in like manner abide
by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to
the emancipation of slaves. So help me God.

The following classes of persons are excepted from the benefits of this proclamation:

First, all who are or shall have been pretended civil or diplomatic officers or otherwise domestic or foreign agents of the
pretended Confederate government.

Second, all who left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion.

Third, all who shall have been military or naval officers of said pretended Confederate government above the rank of colonel
in the army or lieutenant in the navy.

Fourth, all who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid the rebellion.

Fifth, all who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States to evade duty
in resisting the rebellion.

Sixth, all who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war persons found in the United
States service as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in other capacities.

Seventh, all persons who have been or are absentees from the United States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.

Eighth, all military and naval officers in the Rebel service who were educated by the government in the Military Academy at
West Point or the United States Naval Academy.

Ninth, all persons who held the pretended offices of governors of states in insurrection against the United States.

Tenth, all persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States and passed beyond the
Federal military lines into the pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.

Eleventh, all persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the high seas and
all persons who have made raids into the United States from Canada or been engaged in destroying the commerce of the United
States upon the lakes and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the United States.

Twelfth, all persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are
in military, naval, or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or naval authorities, or agents
of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind, either before or after conviction.

Thirteenth, all persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion and the estimated value of whose taxable property
is over $20,000.

Fourteenth, all persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the President's proclamation of December 8, A.D.
1863, or an oath of allegiance to the government of the United States since the date of said proclamation and who have not
thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate.

Provided, that special application may be made to the President for pardon by any person belonging to the excepted classes, and such
clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United
States.

The secretary of state will establish rules and regulations for administering and recording the said amnesty oath, so as to
insure its benefit to the people and guard the government against fraud.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 6, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 310-312.

Thomas Jefferson, whose election to the presidency had been hailed as the "revolution of 1800," was constantly denounced during
his two administrations (1801-1809) by the Federalist press. He was accused of everything from atheism to a desire to make
America a French satellite. His consequent dim view of the press, which he retained to the end of his life, is expressed in
this letter to John Norvell, dated June 14, 1807.

Your letter of May 9 has been duly received. The subject it proposes would require time and space for even moderate development.
My occupations limit me to a very short notice of them. I think there does not exist a good elementary work on the organization
of society into civil government. I mean a work which presents in one full and comprehensive view the system of principles
on which such an organization should be founded, according to the rights of nature. For want of a single work of that character,
I should recommend Locke on Government, Sidney, Priestley's Essay on the First Principles of Government, Chipman's Principles of Government, The Federalist. Adding, perhaps, Beccaria on crimes and punishments because of the demonstrative manner in which he has treated that branch
of the subject. If your views of political inquiry go further, to the subjects of money and commerce, Smith's Wealth of Nations is the best book to be read, unless Say's Political Economy can be had, which treats the same subject on the same principles, but in a shorter compass and more lucid manner. But I believe
this work has not been translated into our language.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. But as we have employed some of the best materials of the British
constitution in the construction of our own government, a knowledge of British history becomes useful to the American politician.
There is, however, no general history of that country which can be recommended. The elegant one of Hume seems intended to
disguise and discredit the good principles of the government and is so plausible and pleasing in its style and manner as to
instill its errors and heresies insensibly into the minds of unwary readers. Baxter has performed a good operation on it.
He has taken the text of Hume as his groundwork, abridging it by the omission of some details of little interest, and wherever
he has found him endeavoring to mislead, by either the suppression of a truth or by giving it a false coloring, he has changed
the text to what it should be, so that we may properly call it Hume's history republicanized. He has, moreover, continued
the history (but indifferently) from where Hume left it, to the year 1800. The work is not popular in England because it is
republican; and but a few copies have ever reached America. It is a single quarto volume. Adding to this Ludlow's Memoirs, Mrs. Macauley's and Belknap's histories, a sufficient view will be presented of the free principles of the English constitution.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer,
"by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy
truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned
prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being
put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations
to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of
my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing
in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period
of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed
be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected
a great portion of Europe to his will, etc., but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into
a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind
is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the first,
Truths; the second, Probabilities; the third, Possibilities; the fourth, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it
would contain little more than authentic papers and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his
own reputation for their truth. The second would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment
should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much. The third and fourth should
be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.

Such an editor, too, would have to set his face against the demoralizing practice of feeding the public mind habitually on
slander and the depravity of taste which this nauseous aliment induces. Defamation is becoming a necessary of life, insomuch
that a dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant. Even those who do not believe these
abominations still read them with complaisance to their auditors, and instead of the abhorrence and indignation which should
fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, though they do not themselves.
It seems to escape them that it is not he who prints but he who pays for printing a slander who is its real author.

These thoughts on the subjects of your letter are hazarded at your request. Repeated instances of the publication of what
has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into
meanings imagined by their own wickedness only, justify my expressing a solicitude that this hasty communication may in nowise
be permitted to find its way into the public papers. Not fearing these political bulldogs, I yet avoid putting myself in the
way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity which a firm execution of my duties
will permit me to enjoy.

In his Farewell Address, written with the help of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and delivered March 4, 1837, Andrew Jackson reviewed the accomplishments of his administration and explained the motivation
of some of his policies. He looked back with satisfaction and prophesied the continuation of his program under his handpicked
successor, Martin Van Buren. Nineteenth-century historians did not view Jackson's eight years in office so complacently. An
early biographer, James Parton, pointed to some of the contradictions in his character and in his achievements. Jackson “was
a patriot and a traitor. He was one of the greatest generals and wholly ignorant of the art of war....The first of statesmen,
he never devised, he never framed a measure....A most law-defying, law-obeying citizen....A democrat autocrat. An urban savage.
An atrocious saint.”

Being about to retire finally from public life, I beg leave to offer you my grateful thanks for the many proofs of kindness
and confidence which I have received at your hands. It has been my fortune, in the discharge of public duties, civil and military,
frequently to have found myself in difficult and trying situations where prompt decision and energetic action were necessary
and where the interest of the country required that high responsibilities should be fearlessly encountered; and it is with
the deepest emotions of gratitude that I acknowledge the continued and unbroken confidence with which you have sustained me
in every trial.

My public life has been a long one, and I cannot hope that it has, at all times, been free from errors. But I have the consolation
of knowing that, if mistakes have been committed, they have not seriously injured the country I so anxiously endeavored to
serve; and, at the moment when I surrender my last public trust, I leave this great people prosperous and happy, in the full
enjoyment of liberty and peace, and honored and respected by every nation of the world.

If my humble efforts have, in any degree, contributed to preserve to you these blessings, I have been more than rewarded by
the honors you have heaped upon me; and, above all, by the generous confidence with which you have supported me in every peril,
and with which you have continued to animate and cheer my path to the closing hour of my political life. The time has now
come when advanced age and a broken frame warn me to retire from public concerns; but the recollection of the many favors
you have bestowed upon me is engraven upon my heart, and I have felt that I could not part from your service without making
this public acknowledgment of the gratitude I owe you. And if I use the occasion to offer to you the counsels of age and experience,
you will, I trust, receive them with the same indulgent kindness which you have so often extended to me; and will, at least,
see in them an earnest desire to perpetuate, in this favored land, the blessings of liberty and equal laws.

We have now lived almost fifty years under the Constitution framed by the sages and patriots of the Revolution. The conflicts
in which the nations of Europe were engaged during a great part of this period, the spirit in which they waged war against
each other, and our intimate commercial connections with every part of the civilized world rendered it a time of much difficulty
for the government of the United States. We have had our seasons of peace and war, with all the evils which precede or follow
a state of hostility with powerful nations. We encountered these trials with our Constitution yet in its infancy, and under
the disadvantages which a new and untried government must always feel when it is called upon to put forth its whole strength
without the lights of experience to guide it or the weight of precedents to justify its measures. But we have passed triumphantly
through all these difficulties. Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment; and, at the end of nearly half a century,
we find that it has preserved unimpaired the liberties of the people, secured the rights of property, and that our country
has improved and is flourishing beyond any former example in the history of nations.

In our domestic concerns there is everything to encourage us; and if you are true to yourselves nothing can impede your march
to the highest point of national prosperity. The states which had so long been retarded in their improvement by the Indian
tribes residing in the midst of them are at length relieved from the evil; and this unhappy race--the original dwellers in
our land--are now placed in a situation where we may well hope that they will share in the blessings of civilization and be
saved from that degradation and destruction to which they were rapidly hastening while they remained in the states. And while
the safety and comfort of our own citizens have been greatly promoted by their removal, the philanthropist will rejoice that
the remnant of that ill-fated race has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury or oppression, and that the paternal
care of the general government will hereafter watch over them and protect them.

If we turn to our relations with foreign powers, we find our condition equally gratifying. Actuated by the sincere desire
to do justice to every nation and to preserve the blessings of peace, our intercourse with them has been conducted on the
part of this government in the spirit of frankness; and I take pleasure in saying that it has generally been met in a corresponding
temper. Difficulties of old standing have been surmounted by friendly discussion and the mutual desire to be just; and the
claims of our citizens, which had long been withheld, have at length been acknowledged and adjusted, and satisfactory arrangements
made for their final payment. And with a limited and, I trust, a temporary exception, our relations with every foreign power
are now of the most friendly character, our commerce continually expanding, and our flag respected in every quarter of the
world.

These cheering and grateful prospects and these multiplied favors we owe, under Providence, to the adoption of the federal
Constitution. It is no longer a question whether this great country can remain happily united and flourish under our present
form of government. Experience, the unerring test of all human undertakings, has shown the wisdom and foresight of those who
formed it; and has proved that in the union of these states there is a sure foundation for the brightest hopes of freedom
and for the happiness of the people. At every hazard and by every sacrifice, this Union must be preserved.

The necessity of watching with jealous anxiety for the preservation of the Union was earnestly pressed upon his fellow citizens
by the father of his country in his farewell address. He has there told us that "while experience shall not have demonstrated
its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to
weaken its bonds"; and he has cautioned us, in the strongest terms, against the formation of parties on geographical discriminations,
as one of the means which might disturb our Union, and to which designing men would be likely to resort.

The lessons contained in this invaluable legacy of Washington to his countrymen should be cherished in the heart of every
citizen to the latest generation; and, perhaps, at no period of time could they be more usefully remembered than at the present
moment. For when we look upon the scenes that are passing around us and dwell upon the pages of his parting address, his paternal
counsels would seem to be not merely the offspring of wisdom and foresight but the voice of prophecy foretelling events and
warning us of the evil to come.

Forty years have passed since this imperishable document was given to his countrymen. The federal Constitution was then regarded
by him as an experiment, and he so speaks of it in his address, but an experiment upon the success of which the best hopes
of his country depended, and we all know that he was prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to secure to it a full and
a fair trial. The trial has been made. It has succeeded beyond the proudest hopes of those who framed it. Every quarter of
this widely extended nation has felt its blessings and shared in the general prosperity produced by its adoption.

But amid this general prosperity and splendid success, the dangers of which he warned us are becoming every day more evident,
and the signs of evil are sufficiently apparent to awaken the deepest anxiety in the bosom of the patriot. We behold systematic
efforts publicly made to sow the seeds of discord between different parts of the United States and to place party divisions
directly upon geographical distinctions; to excite the South against the North and the North against the South; and to force
into the controversy the most delicate and exciting topics, topics upon which it is impossible that a large portion of the
Union can ever speak without strong emotion.

Appeals, too, are constantly made to sectional interests in order to influence the election of the chief magistrate, as if
it were desired that he should favor a particular quarter of the country instead of fulfilling the duties of his station with
impartial justice to all; and the possible dissolution of the Union has at length become an ordinary and familiar subject
of discussion. Has the warning voice of Washington been forgotten? Or have designs already been formed to sever the Union?

Let it not be supposed that I impute to all of those who have taken an active part in these unwise and unprofitable discussions
a want of patriotism or of public virtue. The honorable feeling of state pride and local attachments find a place in the bosoms
of the most enlightened and pure. But while such men are conscious of their own integrity and honesty of purpose, they ought
never to forget that the citizens of other states are their political brethren; and that, however mistaken they may be in
their views, the great body of them are equally honest and upright with themselves. Mutual suspicions and reproaches may in
time create mutual hostility, and artful and designing men will always be found who are ready to foment these fatal divisions
and to inflame the natural jealousies of different sections of the country. The history of the world is full of such examples
and especially the history of republics.

What have you to gain by division and dissension? Delude not yourselves with the belief that a breach once made may be afterward
repaired. If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are
now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword. Neither
should you deceive yourselves with the hope that the first line of separation would be the permanent one, and that nothing
but harmony and concord would be found in the new associations formed upon the dissolution of this Union. Local interests
would still be found there, and unchastened ambition. And if the recollection of common dangers in which the people of these
United States stood side by side against the common foe; the memory of victories won by their united valor; the prosperity
and happiness they have enjoyed under the present Constitution; the proud name they bear as citizens of this great republic;
if all these recollections and proofs of common interest are not strong enough to bind us together as one people, what tie
will hold united the new divisions of empire when these bonds have been broken and this Union dissevered?

The first line of separation would not last for a single generation; new fragments would be torn off; new leaders would spring
up; and this great and glorious republic would soon be broken into a multitude of petty states, without commerce, without
credit, jealous of one another, armed for mutual aggression, loaded with taxes to pay armies and leaders, seeking aid against
each other from foreign powers, insulted and trampled upon by the nations of Europe, until, harassed with conflicts and humbled
and debased in spirit, they would be ready to submit to the absolute dominion of any military adventurer and to surrender
their liberty for the sake of repose. It is impossible to look on the consequences that would inevitably follow the destruction
of this government and not feel indignant when we hear cold calculations about the value of the Union and have so constantly
before us a line of conduct so well calculated to weaken its ties.

There is too much at stake to allow pride or passion to influence your decision. Never for a moment believe that the great
body of the citizens of any state or states can deliberately intend to do wrong. They may, under the influence of temporary
excitement or misguided opinions, commit mistakes; they may be misled for a time by the suggestions of self-interest; but
in a community so enlightened and patriotic as the people of the United States, argument will soon make them sensible of their
errors, and, when convinced, they will be ready to repair them. If they have no higher or better motives to govern them, they
will at least perceive that their own interest requires them to be just to others as they hope to receive justice at their
hands.

But in order to maintain the Union unimpaired, it is absolutely necessary that the laws passed by the constituted authorities
should be faithfully executed in every part of the country, and that every good citizen should, at all times, stand ready
to put down, with the combined force of the nation, every attempt at unlawful resistance, under whatever pretext it may be
made or whatever shape it may assume. Unconstitutional or oppressive laws may no doubt be passed by Congress, either from
erroneous views or the want of due consideration. If they are within the reach of judicial authority, the remedy is easy and
peaceful; and if, from the character of the law, it is an abuse of power not within the control of the judiciary, then free
discussion and calm appeals to reason and to the justice of the people will not fail to redress the wrong. But until the law
shall be declared void by the courts or repealed by Congress, no individual or combination of individuals can be justified
in forcibly resisting its execution. It is impossible that any government can continue to exist upon any other principles.
It would cease to be a government and be unworthy of the name if it had not the power to enforce the execution of its own
laws within its own sphere of action.

It is true that cases may be imagined disclosing such a settled purpose of usurpation and oppression on the part of the government
as would justify an appeal to arms. These, however, are extreme cases, which we have no reason to apprehend in a government
where the power is in the hands of a patriotic people. And no citizen who loves his country would in any case whatever resort
to forcible resistance, unless he clearly saw that the time had come when a freeman should prefer death to submission; for
if such a struggle is once begun and the citizens of one section of the country arrayed in arms against those of another in
doubtful conflict, let the battle result as it may, there will be an end of the Union and, with it, an end to the hopes of
freedom. The victory of the injured would not secure to them the blessings of liberty; it would avenge their wrongs, but they
would themselves share in the common ruin.

But the Constitution cannot be maintained nor the Union preserved in opposition to public feeling by the mere exertion of
the coercive powers confided to the general government. The foundations must be laid in the affections of the people; in the
security it gives to life, liberty, character, and property in every quarter of the country; and in the fraternal attachment
which the citizens of the several states bear to one another as members of one political family, mutually contributing to
promote the happiness of each other. Hence the citizens of every state should studiously avoid everything calculated to wound
the sensibility or offend the just pride of the people of other states; and they should frown upon any proceedings within
their own borders likely to disturb the tranquillity of their political brethren in other portions of the Union.

In a country so extensive as the United States and with pursuits so varied, the internal regulations of the several states
must frequently differ from one another in important particulars; and this difference is unavoidably increased by the varying
principles upon which the American colonies were originally planted; principles which had taken deep root in their social
relations before the Revolution and, therefore, of necessity influencing their policy since they became free and independent
states. But each state has the unquestionable right to regulate its own internal concerns according to its own pleasure; and
while it does not interfere with the rights of the people of other states or the rights of the Union, every state must be
the sole judge of the measures proper to secure the safety of its citizens and promote their happiness; and all efforts on
the part of the people of other states to cast odium upon their institutions, and all measures calculated to disturb their
rights of property or to put in jeopardy their peace and internal tranquillity, are in direct opposition to the spirit in
which the Union was formed and must endanger its safety.

Motives of philanthropy may be assigned for this unwarrantable interference; and weak men may persuade themselves for a moment
that they are laboring in the cause of humanity and asserting the rights of the human race. But everyone, upon sober reflection,
will see that nothing but mischief can come from these improper assaults upon the feelings and rights of others. Rest assured
that the men found busy in this work of discord are not worthy of your confidence and deserve your strongest reprobation.

In the legislation of Congress, also, and in every measure of the general government, justice to every portion of the United
States should be faithfully observed. No free government can stand without virtue in the people and a lofty spirit of patriotism;
and if the sordid feelings of mere selfishness shall usurp the place which ought to be filled by public spirit, the legislation
of Congress will soon be converted into a scramble for personal and sectional advantages. Under our free institutions, the
citizens of every quarter of our country are capable of attaining a high degree of prosperity and happiness without seeking
to profit themselves at the expense of others; and every such attempt must in the end fail to succeed, for the people in every
part of the United States are too enlightened not to understand their own rights and interests and to detect and defeat every
effort to gain undue advantages over them. And when such designs are discovered, it naturally provokes resentments which cannot
always be easily allayed. Justice, full and ample justice, to every portion of the United States, should be the ruling principle
of every freeman and should guide the deliberations of every public body, whether it be state or national.

It is well known that there have always been those among us who wish to enlarge the powers of the general government; and
experience would seem to indicate that there is a tendency on the part of this government to overstep the boundaries marked
out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for which it was created;
and its powers being expressly enumerated, there can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them. Every attempt
to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and firmly opposed. For one evil example will lead to other measures
still more mischievous; and if the principle of constructive powers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, shall
ever be permitted to justify the assumption of a power not given by the Constitution, the general government will before long
absorb all the powers of legislation, and you will have, in effect, but one consolidated government. From the extent of our
country, its diversified interests, different pursuits, and different habits, it is too obvious for argument that a single
consolidated government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions
should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the states and to confine
the action of the general government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties.

There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the federal government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most
productive and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important
duties imposed upon it; and the taxes which it lays upon commerce being concealed from the real payer in the price of the
article, they do not so readily attract the attention of the people as smaller sums demanded from them directly by the tax
gatherer. But the tax imposed on goods enhances by so much the price of the commodity to the consumer; and, as many of these
duties are imposed on articles of necessity which are daily used by the great body of the people, the money raised by these
imposts is drawn from their pockets.

Congress has no right, under the Constitution, to take money from the people unless it is required to execute some one of
the specific powers entrusted to the government; and if they raise more than is necessary for such purposes, it is an abuse
of the power of taxation and unjust and oppressive. It may, indeed, happen that the revenue will sometimes exceed the amount
anticipated when the taxes were laid. When, however, this is ascertained, it is easy to reduce them; and, in such a case,
it is unquestionably the duty of the government to reduce them, for no circumstances can justify it in assuming a power not
given to it by the Constitution nor in taking away the money of the people when it is not needed for the legitimate wants
of the government.

Plain as these principles appear to be, you will yet find that there is a constant effort to induce the general government
to go beyond the limits of its taxing power and to impose unnecessary burdens upon the people. Many powerful interests are
continually at work to procure heavy duties on commerce and to swell the revenue beyond the real necessities of the public
service; and the country has already felt the injurious effects of their combined influence. They succeeded in obtaining a
tariff of duties bearing most oppressively on the agricultural and laboring classes of society and producing a revenue that
could not be usefully employed within the range of the powers conferred upon Congress; and, in order to fasten upon the people
this unjust and unequal system of taxation, extravagant schemes of internal improvement were got up in various quarters to
squander the money and to purchase support. Thus, one unconstitutional measure was intended to be upheld by another, and the
abuse of the power of taxation was to be maintained by usurping the power of expending the money in internal improvements.

You cannot have forgotten the severe and doubtful struggle through which we passed when the Executive Department of the government,
by its veto, endeavored to arrest this prodigal scheme of injustice and to bring back the legislation of Congress to the boundaries
prescribed by the Constitution. The good sense and practical judgment of the people, when the subject was brought before them,
sustained the course of the executive; and this plan of unconstitutional expenditure for the purpose of corrupt influence
is, I trust, finally overthrown.

The result of this decision has been felt in the rapid extinguishment of the public debt and the large accumulation of a surplus
in the treasury, notwithstanding the tariff was reduced and is now very far below the amount originally contemplated by its
advocates. But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to burden you with taxes beyond the economical
wants of the government is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have combined together to impose a heavy tariff
and to produce an overflowing treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest. The corporations
and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains.
Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose
of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the federal government cannot be permitted
to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several states
by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the general government
and annually divided among the states. And if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the states should disregard the principles
of economy which ought to characterize every republican government and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their
resources, they will, before long, find themselves oppressed with debts which they are unable to pay, and the temptation will
become irresistible to support high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution.

Do not allow yourselves, my fellow citizens, to be misled on this subject. The federal government cannot collect a surplus
for such purposes without violating the principles of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It
is, moreover, a system of injustice, and, if persisted in, will inevitably lead to corruption and must end in ruin. The surplus
revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people, from the farmer, the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society;
but who will receive it when distributed among the states, where it is to be disposed of by leading state politicians who
have friends to favor and political partisans to gratify? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have
most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the general government
rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes
enumerated in the Constitution; and if its income is found to exceed these wants, it should be forthwith reduced, and the
burdens of the people so far lightened.

In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued
since the adoption of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course
of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the
people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of
issuing paper money receivable in the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several
states upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the constitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its
place.

It was not easy for men engaged in the ordinary pursuits of business, whose attention had not been particularly drawn to the
subject, to foresee all the consequences of a currency exclusively of paper; and we ought not, on that account, to be surprised
at the facility with which laws were obtained to carry into effect the paper system. Honest and even enlightened men are sometimes
misled by the specious and plausible statements of the designing. But experience has now proved the mischiefs and dangers
of a paper currency, and it rests with you to determine whether the proper remedy shall be applied.

The paper system being founded on public confidence and having of itself no intrinsic value, it is liable to great and sudden
fluctuations, thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain. The corporations which create
the paper money cannot be relied upon to keep the circulating medium uniform in amount. In times of prosperity, when confidence
is high, they are tempted by the prospect of gain or by the influence of those who hope to profit by it to extend their issues
of paper beyond the bounds of discretion and the reasonable demands of business. And when these issues have been pushed on
from day to day until the public confidence is at length shaken, then a reaction takes place, and they immediately withdraw
the credits they have given; suddenly curtail their issues; and produce an unexpected and ruinous contraction of the circulating
medium which is felt by the whole community.

The banks, by this means, save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon
the public. Nor does the evil stop here. These ebbs and flows in the currency and these indiscreet extensions of credit naturally
engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people. We have already seen its effects in
the wild spirit of speculation in the public lands and various kinds of stock which, within the last year or two, seized upon
such a multitude of our citizens and threatened to pervade all classes of society and to withdraw their attention from the
sober pursuits of honest industry. It is not by encouraging this spirit that we shall best preserve public virtue and promote
the true interests of our country.

But if your currency continues as exclusively paper as it now is, it will foster this eager desire to amass wealth without
labor; it will multiply the number of dependents on bank accommodations and bank favors; the temptation to obtain money at
any sacrifice will become stronger and stronger, and inevitably lead to corruption which will find its way into your public
councils and destroy, at no distant day, the purity of your government. Some of the evils which arise from this system of
paper press, with peculiar hardship, upon the class of society least able to bear it. A portion of this currency frequently
becomes depreciated or worthless, and all of it is easily counterfeited in such a manner as to require peculiar skill and
much experience to distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine note. These frauds are most generally perpetrated in the smaller
notes, which are used in the daily transactions of ordinary business; and the losses occasioned by them are commonly thrown
upon the laboring classes of society whose situation and pursuits put it out of their power to guard themselves from these
impositions and whose daily wages are necessary for their subsistence.

It is the duty of every government so to regulate its currency as to protect this numerous class as far as practicable from
the impositions of avarice and fraud. It is more especially the duty of the United States where the government is emphatically
the government of the people, and where this respectable portion of our citizens are so proudly distinguished from the laboring
classes of all other nations by their independent spirit, their love of liberty, their intelligence, and their high tone of
moral character. Their industry in peace is the source of our wealth, and their bravery in war has covered us with glory;
and the government of the United States will but ill discharge its duties if it leaves them a prey to such dishonest impositions.
Yet it is evident that their interests cannot be effectually protected unless silver and gold are restored to circulation.

These views alone of the paper currency are sufficient to call for immediate reform; but there is another consideration which
should still more strongly press it upon your attention.

Recent events have proved that the paper money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions;
and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption or force are aware of its
power and prepared to employ it. Your banks now furnish your only circulating medium, and money is plenty or scarce according
to the quantity of notes issued by them. While they have capitals not greatly disproportioned to each other, they are competitors
in business, and no one of them can exercise dominion over the rest. And although, in the present state of the currency, these
banks may and do operate injuriously upon the habits of business, the pecuniary concerns, and the moral tone of society, yet,
from their number and dispersed situation, they cannot combine for the purpose of political influence; and whatever may be
the dispositions of some of them their power of mischief must necessarily be confined to a narrow space and felt only in their
immediate neighborhoods.

But when the charter of the Bank of the United States was obtained from Congress, it perfected the schemes of the paper system
and gave its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain from the commencement of the federal government down to
the present hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the
other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business
of any one of them which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency
throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or
scarce, at its pleasure, at any time, and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks and permitting
an expansion or compelling a general contraction of the circulating medium according to its own will.

The other banking institutions were sensible of its strength, and they soon generally became its obedient instruments, ready
at all times to execute its mandates; and with the banks necessarily went, also, that numerous class of persons in our commercial
cities who depend altogether on bank credits for their solvency and means of business; and who are, therefore, obliged for
their own safety to propitiate the favor of the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service.

The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole money power of
the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged
head; thus organizing this particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United
States and enabling it to bring forward, upon any occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure
of the government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over
the amount of the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every
quarter of the Union and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport
with its own interest or policy.

We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organized and with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to
use it. The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when the Bank of the United States waged war
upon the people in order to compel them to submit to its demands cannot yet be forgotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper
with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity
suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United
States.

If such was its power in a time of peace, what would it not have been in a season of war with an enemy at your doors? No nation
but the freemen of the United States could have come out victorious from such a contest; yet, if you had not conquered, the
government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands of the few; and this organized money power, from its
secret conclave, would have directed the choice of your highest officers and compelled you to make peace or war as best suited
their own wishes. The forms of your government might, for a time, have remained; but its living spirit would have departed
from it.

The distress and sufferings inflicted on the people by the Bank are some of the fruits of that system of policy which is continually
striving to enlarge the authority of the federal government beyond the limits fixed by the Constitution. The powers enumerated
in that instrument do not confer on Congress the right to establish such a corporation as the Bank of the United States; and
the evil consequences which followed may warn us of the danger of departing from the true rule of construction and of permitting
temporary circumstances or the hope of better promoting the public welfare to influence, in any degree, our decisions upon
the extent of the authority of the general government. Let us abide by the Constitution as it is written or amend it in the
constitutional mode if it is found defective.

The severe lessons of experience will, I doubt not, be sufficient to prevent Congress from again chartering such a monopoly,
even if the Constitution did not present an insuperable objection to it. But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal
vigilance by the people is the price of liberty; and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves
you, therefore, to be watchful in your states as well as in the federal government. The power which the moneyed interest can
exercise, when concentrated under a single head, and with our present system of currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in
the struggle made by the Bank of the United States. Defeated in the general government, the same class of intriguers and politicians
will now resort to the states and endeavor to obtain there the same organization which they failed to perpetuate in the Union;
and with specious and deceitful plans of public advantages and state interests and state pride they will endeavor to establish,
in the different states, one moneyed institution with overgrown capital and exclusive privileges sufficient to enable it to
control the operations of the other banks.

Such an institution will be pregnant with the same evils produced by the Bank of the United States, although its sphere of
action is more confined; and in the state in which it is chartered the money power will be able to embody its whole strength
and to move together with undivided force to accomplish any object it may wish to attain. You have already had abundant evidence
of its power to inflict injury upon the agricultural, mechanical, and laboring classes of society, and over whose engagements
in trade or speculation render them dependent on bank facilities, the dominion of the state monopoly will be absolute, and
their obedience unlimited. With such a bank and a paper currency, the money power would, in a few years, govern the state
and control its measures; and if a sufficient number of states can be induced to create such establishments, the time will
soon come when it will again take the field against the United States and succeed in perfecting and perpetuating its organization
by a charter from Congress.

It is one of the serious evils of our present system of banking that it enables one class of society, and that by no means
a numerous one, by its control over the currency to act injuriously upon the interests of all the others and to exercise more
than its just proportion of influence in political affairs. The agricultural, the mechanical, and the laboring classes have
little or no share in the direction of the great moneyed corporations; and from their habits and the nature of their pursuits,
they are incapable of forming extensive combinations to act together with united force. Such concert of action may sometimes
be produced in a single city or in a small district of country by means of personal communications with each other; but they
have no regular or active correspondence with those who are engaged in similar pursuits in distant places. They have but little
patronage to give the press and exercise but a small share of influence over it; they have no crowd of dependents about them
who hope to grow rich without labor by their countenance and favor and who are, therefore, always ready to exercise their
wishes.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer all know that their success depends upon their own industry and economy
and that they must not expect to become suddenly rich by the fruits of their toil. Yet these classes of society form the great
body of the people of the United States; they are the bone and sinew of the country; men who love liberty and desire nothing
but equal rights and equal laws and who, moreover, hold the great mass of our national wealth, although it is distributed
in moderate amounts among the millions of freemen who possess it. But, with overwhelming numbers and wealth on their side,
they are in constant danger of losing their fair influence in the government, and with difficulty maintain their just rights
against the incessant efforts daily made to encroach upon them.

The mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control;
from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges which they have succeeded in obtaining in the different states
and which are employed altogether for their benefit; and unless you become more watchful in your states and check this spirit
of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will, in the end, find that the most important powers of government have
been given or bartered away, and the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

The paper money system and its natural associates, monopoly and exclusive privileges, have already struck their roots deep
in the soil; and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit
by the abuses and desire to perpetuate them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the general government as
well as in the states and will seek, by every artifice, to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that
you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetuating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed
the sovereignty of the country and to you everyone placed in authority is ultimately responsible. It is always in your power
to see that the wishes of the people are carried into faithful execution, and their will, when once made known, must sooner
or later be obeyed. And while the people remain, as I trust they ever will, uncorrupted and incorruptible and continue watchful
and jealous of their rights, the government is safe, and the cause of freedom will continue to triumph over all its enemies.

But it will require steady and persevering exertions on your part to rid yourselves of the iniquities and mischiefs of the
paper system and to check the spirit of monopoly and other abuses which have sprung up with it and of which it is the main
support. So many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject that you must not hope the conflict will be a short
one nor success easy. My humble efforts have not been spared during my administration of the government to restore the constitutional
currency of gold and silver; and something, I trust, has been done toward the accomplishment of this most desirable object.
But enough yet remains to require all your energy and perseverance. The power, however, is in your hands, and the remedy must
and will be applied if you determine upon it.

While I am thus endeavoring to press upon your attention the principles which I deem of vital importance in the domestic concerns
of the country, I ought not to pass over, without notice, the important considerations which should govern your policy toward
foreign powers. It is unquestionably our true interest to cultivate the most friendly understanding with every nation and
to avoid by every honorable means the calamities of war; and we shall best attain this object by frankness and sincerity in
our foreign intercourse, by the prompt and faithful execution of treaties, and by justice and impartiality in our conduct
to all. But no nation, however desirous of peace, can hope to escape occasional collisions with other powers; and the soundest
dictates of policy require that we should place ourselves in a condition to assert our rights if a resort to force should
ever become necessary.

Our local situation, our long line of seacoast, indented by numerous bays, with deep rivers opening into the interior, as
well as our extended and still increasing commerce, point to the navy as our natural means of defense. It will, in the end,
be found to be the cheapest and most effectual; and now is the time, in a season of peace and with an overflowing revenue,
that we can, year after year, add to its strength without increasing the burdens of the people. It is your true policy. For
your navy will not only protect your rich and flourishing commerce in distant seas, but will enable you to reach and annoy
the enemy and will give to defense its greatest efficiency by meeting danger at a distance from home.

It is impossible by any line of fortifications to guard every point from attack against a hostile force advancing from the
ocean and selecting its object; but they are indispensable to protect cities from bombardment, dockyards, and naval arsenals
from destruction; to give shelter to merchant vessels in time of war, and to single ships or weaker squadrons when pressed
by superior force. Fortifications of this description cannot be too soon completed and armed and placed in a condition of
the most perfect preparation. The abundant means we now possess cannot be applied in any manner more useful to the country;
and when this is done and our naval force sufficiently strengthened and our militia armed, we need not fear that any nation
will wantonly insult us or needlessly provoke hostilities. We shall more certainly preserve peace when it is well understood
that we are prepared for war.

In presenting to you, my fellow citizens, these parting counsels, I have brought before you the leading principles upon which
I endeavored to administer the government in the high office with which you twice honored me. Knowing that the path of freedom
is continually beset by enemies who often assume the disguise of friends, I have devoted the last hours of my public life
to warn you of the danger.

The progress of the United States under our free and happy institutions has surpassed the most sanguine hopes of the founders
of the republic. Our growth has been rapid beyond all former example--in numbers, in wealth, in knowledge, and all the useful
arts which contribute to the comforts and convenience of man; and from the earliest ages of history to the present day, there
never have been 13 million people associated together in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the
people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad; your strength and power are well known
throughout the civilized world, as well as the high and gallant bearing of your sons.

It is from within, among yourselves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for
power, that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume,
that you have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has
showered on this favored land blessings without number and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom to preserve it for the
benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed
and enable you, with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time the great
charge He has committed to your keeping.

My own race is nearly run; advanced age and failing health warn me that before long I must pass beyond the reach of human
events and cease to feel the vicissitudes of human affairs. I thank God that my life has been spent in a land of liberty and
that He has given me a heart to love my country with the affection of a son. And, filled with gratitude for your constant
and unwavering kindness, I bid you a last and affectionate farewell.

Source: Farewell Address of Andrew Jackson to the People of the United States: and the Inaugural Address of Martin Van Buren, President
of the United States, 1837, pp. 3-16.

After the surrender of Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, Lincoln immediately issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 soldiers
to suppress the insurrection. At the same time he called for a special session of Congress to convene on the Fourth of July.
When the session convened, Lincoln explained the case against the South, outlined the measures he had taken against the rebellion,
and defined the purpose of the war. At this early stage, even Lincoln did not foresee the bloody and protracted struggle that
lay ahead. Lincoln's message is reprinted below.

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution, your attention is not called to any
ordinary subject of legislation.

At the beginning of the present presidential term, four months ago, the functions of the Federal government were found to
be generally suspended within the several states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida,
excepting only those of the Post Office Department.

Within these states all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, customhouses, and the like, including the movable and stationary property
in and about them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor,
and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The forts thus seized
had been put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were organizing, all
avowedly with the same hostile purpose.

The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal government in and near those states were either besieged or menaced by
warlike preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal
in quality to the best of its own and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A disproportionate share of the Federal
muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into these states, and had been seized to be used against the government. Accumulations
of the public revenue lying within them had been seized for the same object. The Navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving
but a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the government. Officers of the Federal Army and Navy had resigned
in great numbers, and, of those resigning, a large proportion had taken up arms against the government. Simultaneously and
in connection with all this the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accordance with this purpose, an
ordinance had been adopted in each of these states declaring the states respectively to be separated from the national Union.
A formula for instituting a combined government of these states had been promulgated, and this illegal organization, in the
character of Confederate States, was already invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign powers.

Finding this condition of things and believing it to be an imperative duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible,
the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end became indispensable. This choice
was made and was declared in the inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before
a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the government
and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot box. It promised a continuance of the
mails at government expense to the very people who were resisting the government, and it gave repeated pledges against any
disturbance to any of the people or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might constitutionally and justifiably
do in such a case, everything was forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the government on foot.

On the 5th of March, the present incumbent's first full day in office, a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter,
written on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was by that department placed in his
hands. This letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that reenforcements could not be thrown into that fort
within the time for his relief rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding possession
of the same, with a force of less than 20,000 good and well-disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers
of his command, and their memoranda on the subject were made enclosures of Major Anderson's letter.

The whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflection,
however, he took full time, consulting with other officers, both of the Army and the Navy, and at the end of four days came
reluctantly, but decidedly, to the same conclusion as before. He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient force
was then at the control of the government or could be raised and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions
in the fort would be exhausted. In a purely military point of view this reduced the duty of the administration in the case
to the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the fort.

It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position under the circumstances would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity
under which it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the
latter a recognition abroad; that, in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed. Starvation
was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached, Fort Pickens might be reenforced. This last would be a clear indication
of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military necessity.

An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort Pickens. This order could not go by land but must take the longer and slower route by sea. The first return news
from the order was received just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself was that the officer commanding
the Sabine, to which vessel the troops had been transferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi-armistice of the late administration (and of the existence of which the present administration, up
to the time the order was dispatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the troops.
To now reenforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached at Fort Sumter was impossible, rendered so by the near exhaustion
of provisions in the latter named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture, the government had a few days before commenced
preparing an expedition, as well-adapted as might be, to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately
used or not, according to circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now presented, and it was resolved
to send it forward.

As had been intended in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might expect
an attempt would be made to provision the fort, and that if the attempt should not be resisted there would be no effort to
throw in men, arms, or ammunition without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly
given, whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.

It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of
the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew
-- they were expressly notified -- that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which
would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this government
desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve
the Union from actual and immediate dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot box
for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object -- to drive out the visible
authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution.

That this was their object the executive well understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can have
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep this declaration good but also to keep
the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world should not be able to misunderstand it. By the affair
at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the government
began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort, sent
to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give the protection in whatever was lawful. In this
act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue: "Immediate dissolution or blood."

And this issue embraces more than the fate of the United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether
a constitutional republic, or democracy -- a government of the people by the same people -- can or cannot maintain its territorial
integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to
control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other
pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government and thus practically put an end to free government
upon the earth. It forces us to ask -- Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity
be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the government and so to resist force employed for
its destruction by force for its preservation. . . .

It might seem at first thought to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called "secession"
or "rebellion." The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning they knew they could never raise their
treason to any respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride
in and reverence for the history and government of their common country as any other civilized and patriotic people. They
knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced
by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly
logical steps through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any state of
the Union may consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other state. The little disguise that the supposed right
is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice.

With rebellion thus sugarcoated, they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years, and
until at length they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretense of taking their state out of the Union who could have been brought
to no such thing the day before.

This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred
supremacy pertaining to a state -- to each state of our Federal Union. Our states have neither more nor less power than that
reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a state out of the Union. The original
ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the
Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated
a state. The new ones only took the designation of states on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for
the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent
states"; but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterward abundantly show.

The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later,
that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been states, either in substance or in name, outside of
the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "state rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?
Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the states, but the word even is not in the national Constitution, nor, as is believed,
in any of the state constitutions. What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define
it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our states, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty;
and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United
States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law
of the land.

The states have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do
so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty.
By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any
of the states, and, in fact, it created them as states. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the
Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them states, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a state constitution
independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new states framed their constitutions before they entered
the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.

Unquestionably the states have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the national Constitution; but among these
surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but at most such only as were known in
the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the government itself had never been known
as a governmental -- as a merely administrative -- power. This relative matter of national power and state rights, as a principle,
is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole -- to the general government -- while whatever concerns only
the state should be left exclusively to the state. This is all there is of original principle about it. Whether the national
Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy is not to be questioned.
We are all bound by that defining without question.

What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with the Constitution -- is lawful and peaceful. It is not contended that there is any express law for it, and nothing should ever be implied as law which leads to unjust
or absurd consequences. . . .

The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have assumed to make a national constitution of their
own, in which of necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of secession, as they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that on principle
it ought not to be in ours. If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours they show that to be consistent they
must secede from one another whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts or effecting any other selfish
or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disintegration and upon which no government can possibly endure.

If all the states save one should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder
politicians would at once deny the power and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon state rights. But suppose that
precisely the same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be called "the seceding of the others from that
one," it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a
minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle
and profound on the rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made the Constitution and speaks from the
Preamble, calling itself "We, the people."

It may well be questioned whether there is today a majority of the legally qualified voters of any state, except, perhaps,
South Carolina, in favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are the majority in many, if not
in every other one, of the so-called seceded states. The contrary has not been demonstrated in any one of them. It is ventured
to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are
all on one side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election
all that large class who are at once for the Union and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union. . . .

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and
substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders;
to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding
to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend.
. . .

Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled -- the successful
establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains: its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can
fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets,
and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there
can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching
men that what they cannot take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners
of a war.

Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to be the course of the government toward the Southern
states after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as
ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws, and that he probably will have no different understanding of the powers
and duties of the Federal government relatively to the rights of the states and the people under the Constitution than that
expressed in the inaugural address.

He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it.
Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or
neglect it. It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation in any just sense
of those terms.

The Constitution provides, and all the states have accepted the provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every
state in this Union a republican form of government." But if a state may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so it may
also discard the republican form of government, so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful
and obligatory.

It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the government forced
upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government. No compromise by public servants could
in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked
precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point
upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate
decisions.

As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal
of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, not
even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done
what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your views
and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain
and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws.

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without
fear and with manly hearts.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 6, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 20-31.

Many Democrats followed President Andrew Jackson's lead in condemning the Military Academy at West Point, New York. The reasons for the attack are revealed in the following speech delivered to the House of Representatives in 1836
by a young congressman and future president, Franklin Pierce. As a result of the agitation by Pierce and others, an investigation
was undertaken by the House in 1837 substantiating Pierce's objections. Although no sweeping reforms followed, a bill of 1838
extended from one to four years a cadet's service obligation after completing his four-year course at the Point. The army,
unwillingly, also instituted the practice (only haphazardly resorted to in the past) of recruiting officers from among civilian
applicants in 1838 and 1839; and the practice of elevating noncommissioned officers from the rank of sergeant to lieutenant
was begun in 1837 and later expanded.

An attempt was made during the last Congress to bring the subject of the reorganization of the Military Academy before the
country through a report of a committee. The same thing has been done during the present session, again and again, but all
efforts have proved alike unsuccessful! Still, you do not cease to call for appropriations; you require the people's money
for the support of the institution, while you refuse them the light necessary to enable them to judge of the propriety of
your annual requisitions.

Whether the amount proposed to be appropriated, by the bill upon your table, is too great or too small or precisely sufficient
to cover the current expenses of the institution is a matter into which I will not at present inquire; but I shall feel bound
to oppose the bill in every stage of its progress. I cannot vote a single dollar until the resolution of inquiry, presented
by my friend from Kentucky (Mr. Hawes) at an early day in the session, shall be first taken up and disposed of. . . .

Sir, why has this investigation been resisted? Is it not an institution which has already cost this country more than $3 million
for which you propose, in this very bill, an appropriation of more than $130,000, and which, at the same time, in the estimation
of a large portion of the citizens of this Union, has failed, eminently failed, to fulfill the objects for which it was established,
of sufficient interest and importance to claim the consideration of a committee of this House and of the House itself? I should
have expected the resolution of the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Hawes), merely proposing an inquiry, to pass without opposition
had I not witnessed the strong sensation, nay, excitement, that was produced here, at the last session, by the presentation
of his yet unpublished report. . . .

Sir, no man can feel more deeply interested in the Army, or entertain a higher regard for it, than myself. My earliest recollections
connect themselves fondly and gratefully with the names of the brave men who, relinquishing the quiet and security of civil
life, were staking their all upon the defense of their country's rights and honor. One of the most distinguished among that
noble band now occupies and honors a seat upon this floor. It is not fit that I should indulge in expressions of personal
respect and admiration, which I am sure would find a hearty response in the bosom of every member of this committee. I allude
to him merely to express the hope that, on some occasion, we may have, upon this subject, the benefit of his experience and
observation. And if his opinions shall differ from my own, I promise carefully to review every step by which I have been led
to my present conclusions.

You cannot mistake me, sir; I refer to the hero of Erie. I have declared myself the friend of the Army. Satisfy me, then,
what measures are best calculated to render it effective and what all desire it to be, and I go for the proposition with my
whole heart.

But I cannot believe that the Military Academy, as at present organized, is calculated to accomplish this desirable end. It
may, and undoubtedly does, send forth into the country much military knowledge; but the advantage which your Army, or that
which will constitute your Army in time of need, derives from it, is by no means commensurate with the expense you incur.

Here, Mr. Chairman, permit me to say that I deny utterly the expediency and the right to educate, at the public expense, any
number of young men who, on the completion of their education, are not to form a portion of your military force, but to return
to the walks of private life. Such was never the operation of the Military Academy, until after the law of 1812; and the doctrine,
so far as I have been able to ascertain, was first formally announced by a distinguished individual at this time sufficiently
jealous of the exercise of executive patronage, and greatly alarmed by what he conceives to be the tendencies of this government
to centralism and consolidation. It may be found in the report of the secretary of war communicated to Congress in 1819.

If it shall, upon due consideration, receive the sanction of Congress and the country, I can see no limit to the exercise
of power and government patronage. Follow out the principle, and where will it lead you? You confer upon the national government
the absolute guardianship of literature and science, military and civil; you need not stop at military science; anyone in
the wide range of science becomes at once a legitimate and constitutional object of your patronage; you are confined by no
limit but your discretion; you have no check but your own good pleasure. If you may afford instruction at the public expense
in the languages, in philosophy, in chemistry, and in the exact sciences to young gentleman who are under no obligation to
enter the service of their country, but are, in fact, destined for civil life, why may you not, by parity of reasoning, provide
the means of a legal, or theological, or medical education, on the ground that the recipients of your bounty will carry forth
a fund of useful knowledge that may, at some time, under some circumstances, produce a beneficial influence, and promote “the
general welfare.” Sir, I fear that even some of us may live to see the day when this “general welfare” of your Constitution
will leave us little ground to boast of a government of limited powers.

But I did not propose at this time to discuss the abstract question of constitutional right. I will regard the expediency
alone; and, whether the power exist or not, its exercise, in an institution like this, is subversive of the only principle
upon which a school conducted at the public expense can be made profitable to the public service--that of making an admission
into your school, and an education there, secondary to an appointment in the Army. Sir, this distinctive feature characterized
all your legislation and all executive recommendations down to 1810.

I may as well notice here, as at any time, an answer which has always been ready when objections have been raised to this
institution; an answer which, if it has not proved quite satisfactory to minds that yield their assent more readily to strong
reasons than to the authority of great names, has yet, unquestionably, exercised a powerful influence upon the public mind.
It has not gone forth upon the authority of an individual merely, but has been published to the world with the approbation
of a committee of a former Congress. It is this: that the institution has received, at different times, the sanction of such
names as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson; and this has been claimed with such boldness, and in a form so imposing, as almost
to forbid any question of its accuracy. If this were correct, in point of fact, it would be entitled to the most profound
respect and consideration, and no change should be urged against the weight of such authority, without mature deliberation
and thorough conviction of expediency. Unfortunately for the advocates of the institution, and fortunately for the interests
of the country, this claim cannot be sustained by reference to executive documents, from the first report of General Knox,
in 1790, to the close of Mr. Jefferson's administration.

The error has undoubtedly innocently occurred by confounding the Military Academy at West Point as it was with the Military
Academy at West Point as it is. The report of Secretary Knox just referred to is characterized by this distinctive feature:
that the corps proposed to be organized were “to serve as an actual defense to the community,” and to constitute a part of
the active military force of the country, “to serve in the field, or on the frontier, or in the fortifications of the seacoast,
as the commander in chief may direct.” At a later period, the report of the secretary of war (Mr. McHenry), communicated to
Congress in 1800, although it proposed a plan for military schools differing in many essential particulars from those which
had preceded it, still retained the distinctive feature just named as characterizing the report of General Knox.

With regard to educating young men gratuitously, which, whatever may have been the design, I am prepared to show is the practical
operation of the Academy as at present organized, I cannot, perhaps, exhibit more clearly the sentiments of the executive
at that early day, urgent as was the occasion, and strong as must have been the desire, to give strength and efficiency to
the military force, than by reading one or two paragraphs from a supplementary report of Secretary McHenry, addressed to the
chairman of the Committee of Defense, January 31, 1800.

The secretary says:

Agreeably to the plan of the Military Academy, the directors thereof are to be officers taken from the Army; consequently,
no expense will be incurred by such appointments. The plan also contemplates that officers of the Army, cadets, and noncommissioned
officers shall receive instruction in the Academy. As the rations and fuel which they are entitled to in the Army will suffice
for them in the Academy, no additional expense will be required for objects of maintenance while there. The expenses of servants
and certain incidental expenses relative to the police and administration may be defrayed by those who shall be admitted,
out of their pay and emoluments.

You will observe, Mr. Chairman, from the phraseology of the report that all were to constitute a part of your actual military
force; and that whatever additional charges should be incurred were to be defrayed by those who might receive the advantages
of instruction. These were provisions, just as they are important. Let me call your attention for a moment to a report of
Colonel Williams which was made the subject of a special message communicated to Congress by Mr. Jefferson, March 18, 1808.
The extract I propose to read, as sustaining fully the views of Mr. McHenry upon this point, is in the following words:

It might be well to make the plan upon such a scale as not only to take in the minor officers of the Navy, but also any youths
from any of the states who might wish for such an education, whether designed for the Army or Navy, or neither, and let them
be assessed to the value of their education, which might form a fund for extra or contingent expenses.

Sir, these are the true doctrines upon this subject; doctrines worthy of the administration under which they were promulgated,
and in accordance with the views of statesmen in the earlier and purer days of the republic. Give to the officers of your
Army the highest advantages for perfection in all the branches of military science, and let those advantages be open to all,
in rotation, and under such terms and regulations as shall be at once impartial toward the officers and advantageous to the
service; but let all young gentlemen who have a taste for military life and desire to adopt arms as a profession prepare themselves
for subordinate situations at their own expense, or at the expense of their parents or guardians, in the same manner that
the youth of the country are qualified for the professions of civil life. . . .

If the patience of the committee would warrant me, Mr. Chairman, I could show, by reference to executive communications and
the concurrent legislation of Congress in 1794, 1796, 1802, and 1808, that prior to the last-mentioned date such an institution
as we now have was neither recommended nor contemplated. Upon this point I will not detain you longer; but when hereafter
confronted by the authority of great names, I trust we shall be told where the expressions of approbation are to be found.
We may then judge of their applicability to the Military Academy as at present organized.

I am far from desiring to see this country destitute of a military academy; but I would have it a school of practice and instruction
for officers actually in the service of the United States; not an institution for educating, gratuitously, young gentlemen
who, on the completion of their term, or after a few months' leave of absence, resign their commissions and return to the
pursuits of civil life. If anyone doubts that this is the practical operation of your present system, I refer him to the annual
list of resignations to be found in the adjutant general's office.

Firmly as I am convinced of the necessity of a reorganization, I would take no step to create an unjust prejudice against
the institution. All that I ask, and, so far as I know, all that any of the opponents of the institution ask is that, after
a full and impartial investigation, it shall stand or fall upon its merits. I know there are graduates of the institution
who are ornaments to the Army and an honor to their country; but they, and not the seminary, are entitled to the credit.

Here I would remark, once for all, that I do not reflect upon the officers or pupils of the Academy; it is to the principles
of the institution itself, as at present organized, that I object. It is often said that the graduates leave the institution
with sentiments that but ill accord with the feelings and opinions of the great mass of the people of that government from
which they derive the means of education, and that many who take commissions possess few qualifications for the command of
men, either in war or in peace. Most of the members of this House have had more or less intercourse with these young gentlemen,
and I leave it for each individual to form his own opinion of the correctness of the charges. Thus much I will say for myself,
that I believe that these and greater evils are the natural if not the inevitable result of the principles in which this institution
is founded; and any system of education established upon similar principles, on government patronage alone, will produce like
results, now and forever.

Sir, what are some of these results? By the report of the secretary of war, dated January 1831, we are informed that, “by
an estimate of the last five years (preceding that date), it appears that the supply of the Army from the corps of graduated
cadets has averaged about twenty-two annually, while those who graduated are about forty, making in each year an excess of
eighteen. The number received annually into the Academy averages one hundred, of which only the number stated, to wit, forty,
pass through the prescribed course of education at school, and become supernumerary lieutenants in the Army.”

By the report of the secretary of war, December 1830, we are informed that the number of promotions to the Army from this
corps for the last five years has averaged about twenty-two annually, while the number of graduates has been at an average
of forty. This excess, which is annually increasing, has placed eighty-seven in waiting until vacancies shall take place,
and show that in the next year, probably, and in the succeeding one, certainly, there will be an excess beyond what the existing
law authorizes to be commissioned. There will then be 106 supernumerary brevet second lieutenants appurtenant to the Army,
at an average annual expense of $80,000. Sir, that results here disclosed were not anticipated by Mr. Madison is apparent
from a recurrence to his messages of 1810 and 1811.

In passing the law of 1812, both Congress and the President acted for the occasion, and they expected those who should succeed
them to act in a similar manner. Their feelings of patriotism and resentment were aroused by beholding the privileges of freemen
wantonly invaded, our glorious stars and stripes disregarded, and national and individual rights trampled in the dust. The
war was pending. The necessity for increasing the military force of the country was obvious and pressing, and the urgent occasion
for increased facilities for military instruction equally apparent. Sir, it was under circumstances like these, when we had
not only enemies abroad but, I blush to say, enemies at home that the institution, as at present organized, had its origin.
It will hardly be pretended that it was the original design of the law to augment the number of persons instructed beyond
the wants of the public service.

Well, the report of the secretary shows that for five years prior to 1831 the Academy had furnished eighteen supernumeraries
annually. A practical operation of this character has no sanction in the recommendation of Mr. Madison. The report demonstrates,
further, the fruitfulness and utility of this institution, by showing the fact that but two-fifths of those who enter the Academy graduate, and that but a fraction
more than one-fifth enter the public service.

This is not the fault of the administration of the Academy; it is not the fault of the young gentlemen who are sent there; on your present peace establishment there can be but little to stimulate them, particularly in the acquisition of
military science. There can hardly be but one object in the mind of the student, and that would be to obtain an education
for the purposes of civil life. The difficulty is that the institution has outlived both the occasion that called it into
existence and its original design.

I have before remarked that the Academy was manifestly enlarged to correspond with the Army and militia actually to be called
into service. Look, then for a moment at facts, and observe with how much wisdom, justice, and sound policy you retain the
provisions of the law of 1812. The total authorized force of 1813, after the declaration of war, was 58,254; and, in October
1814, the military establishment amounted to 62,428. By the act of March 1815, the peace establishment was limited to 10,000,
and now hardly exceeds that number. Thus you make a reduction of more than 50,000 in your actual military force to accommodate
the expenses of the government to its wants. And why do you refuse to do the same with your grand system of public education?
Why does that remain unchanged? Why not reduce it at once, at least to the actual wants of the service, and dispense with
your corps of supernumerary lieutenants?

Sir, there is, there can be, but one answer to the question, and that may be found in the war report of 1819, to which I have
before had occasion to allude. The secretary says, “The cadets who cannot be provided for in the Army will return to private
life, but in the event of a war their knowledge will not be lost to the country.” Indeed, sir, these young gentlemen, if they
could be induced to take the field, would, after a lapse of ten or fifteen years, come up from the bar, or it may be the pulpit, fresh in
military science and admirably qualified for command in the face of an enemy.

The magazine of facts to prove at the same glance the extravagance and unfruitfulness of this institution is not easily exhausted;
but I am admonished by the lateness of the hour to omit many considerations which I regard as both interesting and important.
I will only detain the committee to make a single statement, placing side by side some aggregate results. There has already
been expended upon the institution more than $3,300,000. Between 1815 and 1821, 1,318 students were admitted into the Academy;
and of all the cadets who were ever there, only 265 remained in the service at the end of 1830. Here are the expenses you
have incurred and the products you have realized.

I leave them to be balanced by the people. But for myself, believing as I do that the Academy stands forth as an anomaly among
the institutions of this country; that it is at variance with the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution under which
we live; so long as this House shall deny investigation into its principles and practical operation, I, as an individual member,
will refuse to appropriate the first dollar for its support.

In the fall of 1865 President Andrew Johnson sent several prominent men, including Carl Schurz, Harvey Watterson, and General
Grant, to tour the South and report to him on the conditions they observed. Schurz's report dwelt on Southern intransigence
and urged a harsher Reconstruction policy in line with the recommendations of Congress. Watterson and Grant, on the other
hand, pointed out that the South was conciliatory and upheld the President's policy. Grant, who left Washington on November
29 and visited major cities in North and South Carolina, and Georgia, sent the following report to the President on December
18.

Sir:

In reply to your note of the 16th instant requesting a report from me giving such information as I may be possessed of coming
within the scope of the inquiries made by the Senate of the United States in their resolution of the 12th instant, I have
the honor to submit the following:

With your approval, and also that of the honorable secretary of war, I left Washington city on the 27th of last month for
the purpose of making a tour of inspection through some of the Southern states, or states lately in rebellion, and to see
what changes were necessary to be made in the disposition of the military forces of the country; how these forces could be
reduced and expenses curtailed, etc.; and to learn, as far as possible, the feelings and intentions of the citizens of those
states toward the general government.

The state of Virginia, being so accessible to Washington city, and information from this quarter, therefore, being readily
obtained, I hastened through the state without conversing or meeting with any of its citizens. In Raleigh, North Carolina,
I spent one day; in Charleston, South Carolina, two days; Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, each one day. Both in traveling and
while stopping, I saw much and conversed freely with the citizens of those states, as well as with officers of the Army who
have been stationed among them. The following are the conclusions come to by me.

I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions
which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections -- slavery and state's rights, or the right of a state to secede from the Union -- they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal --
arms -- that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met that they not only accepted the decision
arrived at as final but, now that the smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been given for reflection, that this decision
has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field
and in council.

Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the point of the bayonet throughout the states in rebellion, have
left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that ready obedience to civil authority the American people have generally
been in the habit of yielding. This would render the presence of small garrisons throughout those states necessary until such
time as labor returns to its proper channel and civil authority is fully established. I did not meet anyone, either those
holding places under the government or citizens of the Southern states, who think it practicable to withdraw the military
from the South at present. The white and the black mutually require the protection of the general governments.

There is such universal acquiescence in the authority of the general government throughout the portions of country visited
by me that the mere presence of a military force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order. The good of
the country and economy require that the force kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen (elsewhere in the Southern states than at forts upon the seacoast no force is necessary), should all be white troops. The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes
labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White troops
generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored troops
must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves. It is not the thinking men who would use violence toward any class
of troops sent among them by the general government, but the ignorant in some places might; and the late slave seems to be
imbued with the idea that the property of his late master should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no protection
from the colored soldier. There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes.

My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the Southern states are anxious to return to self-government
within the Union as soon as possible; that while reconstructing they want and require protection from the government; that
they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and
that if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater
commingling, at this time, between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those entrusted with the lawmaking
power.

I did not give the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau that attention I would have done if more time had been at my disposal. Conversations on the subject, however, with officers
connected with the bureau lead me to think that in some of the states its affairs have not been conducted with good judgment
or economy, and that the belief widely spread among the freedmen of the Southern states that the lands of their former owners
will, at least in part, be divided among them has come from the agents of this bureau. This belief is seriously interfering
with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts for the coming year. In some form the Freedmen's Bureau is an absolute
necessity until civil law is established and enforced, securing to the freedmen their rights and full protection. At present,
however, it is independent of the military establishment of the country and seems to be operated by the different agents of
the bureau according to their individual notions. Everywhere General Howard, the able head of the bureau, made friends by
the just and fair instructions and advice he gave; but the complaint in South Carolina was that when he left, things went
on as before.

Many, perhaps the majority, of the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau advise the freedmen that by their own industry they must
expect to live. To this end they endeavor to secure employment for them and to see that both contracting parties comply with
their engagements. In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that
a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in division of lands is
idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities. In such cases I think it will be found that vice and disease will tend
to the extermination or great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected that the opinions held by men at the South
for years can be changed in a day, and therefore the freedmen require, for a few years, not only laws to protect them but
the fostering care of those who will give them good counsel and on whom they rely.

The Freedmen's Bureau, being separated from the military establishment of the country requires all the expenses of a separate
organization. One does not necessarily know what the other is doing or what orders they are acting under. It seems to me this
could be corrected by regarding every officer on duty with troops in the Southern states as an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau,
and then have all orders, from the head of the bureau sent through department commanders. This would create a responsibility
that would secure uniformity of action throughout all the South; would insure the orders and instructions from the head of
the bureau being carried out, and would relieve from duty and pay a large number of employees of the government.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, Senator Cook, Mrs. Eisenhower, and my fellow citizens of this great and
good country we share together:

When we met here four years ago, America was bleak in spirit, depressed by the prospect of seemingly endless war abroad and
of destructive conflict at home.

As we meet here today, we stand on the threshold of a new era of peace in the world.

The central question before us is: How shall we use that peace? Let us resolve that this era we are about to enter will not
be what other postwar periods have so often been: a time of retreat and isolation that leads to stagnation at home and invites
new danger abroad.

Let us resolve that this will be what it can become: a time of great responsibilities greatly borne, in which we renew the
spirit and the promise of America as we enter our third century as a nation.

This past year saw far-reaching results from our new policies for peace. By continuing to revitalize our traditional friendships,
and by our missions to Peking and to Moscow, we were able to establish the base for a new and more durable pattern of relationships
among the nations of the world. Because of America's bold initiatives, 1972 will be long remembered as the year of the greatest
progress since the end of World War II toward a lasting peace in the world.

The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure
for generations to come.

It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace.

Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace.

Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom.

But let us clearly understand the new nature of America's role, as a result of the new policies we have adopted over these
past four years.

We shall respect our treaty commitments.

We shall support vigorously the principle that no country has the right to impose its will or rule on another by force.

We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms, and to reduce the danger of confrontation
between the great powers.

We shall do our share in defending peace and freedom in the world. But we shall expect others to do their share.

The time has passed when America will make every other nation's conflict our own, or make every other nation's future our
responsibility, or presume to tell the people of other nations how to manage their own affairs.

Just as we respect the right of each nation to determine its own future, we also recognize the responsibility of each nation
to secure its own future.

Just as America's role is indispensable in preserving the world's peace, so is each nation's role indispensable in preserving
its own peace.

Together with the rest of the world, let us resolve to move forward from the beginnings we have made. Let us continue to bring
down the walls of hostility which have divided the world for too long, and to build in their place bridges of understanding-so
that despite profound differences between systems of government, the people of the world can be friends.

Let us build a structure of peace in the world in which the weak are as safe as the strong-in which each respects the right
of the other to live by a different system-in which those who would influence others will do so by the strength of their ideas,
and not by the force of their arms.

Let us accept that high responsibility not as a burden, but gladly-gladly because the chance to build such a peace is the
noblest endeavor in which a nation can engage; gladly, also, because only if we act greatly in meeting our responsibilities
abroad will we remain a great Nation, and only if we remain a great Nation will we act greatly in meeting our challenges at
home.

We have the chance today to do more than ever before in our history to make life better in America-to ensure better education,
better health, better housing, better transportation, a cleaner environment-to restore respect for law, to make our communities
more livable-and to insure the God-given right of every American to full and equal opportunity.

Because the range of our needs is so great-because the reach of our opportunities is so great-let us be bold in our determination
to meet those needs in new ways.

Just as building a structure of peace abroad has required turning away from old policies that failed, so building a new era
of progress at home requires turning away from old policies that have failed.

Abroad, the shift from old policies to new has not been a retreat from our responsibilities, but a better way to peace.

And at home, the shift from old policies to new will not be a retreat from our responsibilities, but a better way to progress.

Abroad and at home, the key to those new responsibilities lies in the placing and the division of responsibility. We have
lived too long with the consequences of attempting to gather all power and responsibility in Washington.

Abroad and at home, the time has come to turn away from the condescending policies of paternalism-of "Washington knows best."

A person can be expected to act responsibly only if he has responsibility. This is human nature. So let us encourage individuals
at home and nations abroad to do more for themselves, to decide more for themselves. Let us locate responsibility in more
places. Let us measure what we will do for others by what they will do for themselves.

That is why today I offer no promise of a purely governmental solution for every problem. We have lived too long with that
false promise. In trusting too much in government, we have asked of it more than it can deliver. This leads only to inflated
expectations, to reduced individual effort, and to a disappointment and frustration that erode confidence both in what government
can do and in what people can do.

Government must learn to take less from people so that people can do more for themselves.

Let us remember that America was built not by government, but by people-not by welfare, but by work-not by shirking responsibility,
but by seeking responsibility.

In our own lives, let each of us ask-not just what will government do for me, but what can I do for myself?

In the challenges we face together, let each of us ask-not just how can government help, but how can I help?

Your National Government has a great and vital role to play. And I pledge to you that where this Government should act, we
will act boldly and we will lead boldly. But just as important is the role that each and every one of us must play, as an
individual and as a member of his own community.

From this day forward, let each of us make a solemn commitment in his own heart: to bear his responsibility, to do his part,
to live his ideals-so that together, we can see the dawn of a new age of progress for America, and together, as we celebrate
our 200th anniversary as a nation, we can do so proud in the fulfillment of our promise to ourselves and to the world.

As America's longest and most difficult war comes to an end, let us again learn to debate our differences with civility and
decency. And let each of us reach out for that one precious quality government cannot provide-a new level of respect for the
rights and feelings of one another, a new level of respect for the individual human dignity which is the cherished birthright
of every American.

Above all else, the time has come for us to renew our faith in ourselves and in America.

In recent years, that faith has been challenged.

Our children have been taught to be ashamed of their country, ashamed of their parents, ashamed of America's record at home
and of its role in the world.

At every turn, we have been beset by those who find everything wrong with America and little that is right. But I am confident
that this will not be the judgment of history on these remarkable times in which we are privileged to live.

America's record in this century has been unparalleled in the world's history for its responsibility, for its generosity,
for its creativity, and for its progress.

Let us be proud that our system has produced and provided more freedom and more abundance, more widely shared, than any other
system in the history of the world.

Let us be proud that in each of the four wars in which we have been engaged in this century, including the one we are now
bringing to an end, we have fought not for our selfish advantage, but to help others resist aggression.

Let us be proud that by our bold, new initiatives, and by our steadfastness for peace with honor, we have made a break-through
toward creating in the world what the world has not known before-a structure of peace that can last, not merely for our time,
but for generations to come.

We are embarking here today on an era that presents challenges great as those any nation, or any generation, has ever faced.

We shall answer to God, to history, and to our conscience for the way in which we use these years.

As I stand in this place, so hallowed by history, I think of others who have stood here before me. I think of the dreams they
had for America, and I think of how each recognized that he needed help far beyond himself in order to make those dreams come
true.

Today, I ask your prayers that in the years ahead I may have God's help in making decisions that are right for America, and
I pray for your help so that together we may be worthy of our challenge.

Let us pledge together to make these next four years the best four years in America's history, so that on its 200th birthday
America will be as young and as vital as when it began, and as bright a beacon of hope for all the world.

Let us go forward from here confident in hope, strong in our faith in one another, sustained by our faith in God who created
us, and striving always to serve His purpose.

We stand to-day upon an eminence which overlooks a hundred years of national life--a century crowded with perils, but crowned
with the triumphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen
our faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our people have traveled.

It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption of the first written constitution of the United States--the
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not conquered
a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon
be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of
a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority
of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves.

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers
made the great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short trial, that the confederacy of States, was too
weak to meet the necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established
a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with full power of self-preservation and ample authority
for the accomplishment of its great object.

Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened,
and the growth of our people in all the better elements of national life has indicated the wisdom of the founders and given
new hope to their descendants. Under this Constitution our people long ago made themselves safe against danger from without
and secured for their mariners and flag equality of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five States have
been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws, framed and enforced by their own citizens, to secure the manifold blessings
of local self-government.

The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen States and
a population twenty times greater than that of 1780.

The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses
that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes
of good government.

And now, at the close of this first century of growth, with the inspirations of its history in their hearts, our people have
lately reviewed the condition of the nation, passed judgment upon the conduct and opinions of political parties, and have
registered their will concerning the future administration of the Government. To interpret and to execute that will in accordance
with the Constitution is the paramount duty of the Executive.

Even from this brief review it is manifest that the nation is resolutely facing to the front, resolved to employ its best
energies in developing the great possibilities of the future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to liberty and
good government during the century, our people are determined to leave behind them all those bitter controversies concerning
things which have been irrevocably settled, and the further discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward
march.

The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer a subject of debate. That discussion, which for half a century
threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no appeal--that
the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are and shall continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding
alike upon the States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States nor interfere with any of their
necessary rights of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy of the Union.

The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise
of 1776 by proclaiming "liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof."

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of
the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people.
It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces
of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered
to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom
and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to the
one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years.

No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was
perhaps unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground
for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United
States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle
in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness
not born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see the light." They are rapidly laying the material foundations
of self-support, widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes
of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend
they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws.

The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of the issue may aid its solution. It is
alleged that in many communities negro citizens are practically denied the freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of
this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated
negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can
be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented;
but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will
destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the king,
it shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice.

It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said with the utmost emphasis
that this question of the suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the nation until each, within its
own jurisdiction, makes and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions of the law.

But the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter can not be denied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro
suffrage and the present condition of the race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the sources and fountains of power
in every state. We have no standard by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in
the citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in the suffrage.

The voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will hang the destinies of our governments, can
transmit their supreme authority to no successors save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign
power. If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic will
be certain and remediless.

The census has already sounded the alarm in the appalling figures which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has
risen among our voters and their children.

To the South this question is of supreme importance. But the responsibility for the existence of slavery did not rest upon
the South alone. The nation itself is responsible for the extension of the suffrage, and is under special obligations to aid
in removing the illiteracy which it has added to the voting population. For the North and South alike there is but one remedy.
All the constitutional power of the nation and of the States and all the volunteer forces of the people should be surrendered
to meet this danger by the savory influence of universal education. It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now
living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.

In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new
meaning in the divine oracle which declares that "a little child shall lead them," for our own little children will soon control
the destinies of the Republic.

My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence
our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and
their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the
law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to make
a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its inevitable verdict?

Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best
powers. Let all our people, leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues, move forward and in their strength of liberty
and the restored Union win the grander victories of peace.

The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they
have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by
the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.

By the experience of commercial nations in all ages it has been found that gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but I confidently believe that
arrangements can be made between the leading commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals. Congress
should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now required by law may not disturb our monetary system by driving either
metal out of circulation. If possible, such an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar
will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world.

The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its
value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money
legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should
depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder,
and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the
promise should be kept.

The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of
the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.

I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on financial questions during a long service in Congress, and to say that
time and experience have strengthened the opinions I have so often expressed on these subjects.

The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible for my Administration to prevent. The interests
of agriculture deserve more attention from the Government than they have yet received. The farms of the United States afford
homes and employment for more than one-half our people, and furnish much the largest part of all our exports. As the Government
lights our coasts for the protection of mariners and the benefit of commerce, so it should give to the tillers of the soil
the best lights of practical science and experience.

Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially independent, and are opening to capital and labor new and profitable
fields of employment. Their steady and healthy growth should still be matured. Our facilities for transportation should be
promoted by the continued improvement of our harbors and great interior waterways and by the increase of our tonnage on the
ocean.

The development of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by
constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration,
but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid. The subject, however,
is one which will immediately engage the attention of the Government with a view to a thorough protection to American interests.
We will urge no narrow policy nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any commercial route; but, in the language of my
predecessor, I believe it to be the right "and duty of the United States to assert and maintain such supervision and authority
over any interoceanic canal across the isthmus that connects North and South America as will protect our national interest."

The Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Congress is prohibited from making any law respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Territories of the United States are subject to the direct legislative
authority of Congress, and hence the General Government is responsible for any violation of the Constitution in any of them.
It is therefore a reproach to the Government that in the most populous of the Territories the constitutional guaranty is not
enjoyed by the people and the authority of Congress is set at naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral sense of manhood by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through ordinary
instrumentalities of law.

In my judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples
of every citizen, to prohibit within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially of that class which destroy the family
relations and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest
degree the functions and powers of the National Government.

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. For the good of the service itself,
for the protection of those who are intrusted with the appointing power against the waste of time and obstruction to the public
business caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall
at the proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of the several Executive Departments and prescribe
the grounds upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which incumbents have been appointed.

Finally, acting always within the authority and limitations of the Constitution, invading neither the rights of the States
nor the reserved rights of the people, it will be the purpose of my Administration to maintain the authority of the nation
in all places within its jurisdiction; to enforce obedience to all the laws of the Union in the interests of the people; to
demand rigid economy in all the expenditures of the Government, and to require the honest and faithful service of all executive
officers, remembering that the offices were created, not for the benefit of incumbents or their supporters, but for the service
of the Government.

And now, fellow-citizens, I am about to assume the great trust which you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that
earnest and thoughtful support which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a government of the people.

I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with me the responsibilities and
duties of administration, and, above all, upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this great people and their Government
I reverently invoke the support and blessings of Almighty God.

The programs of most twentieth-century American Presidents have been given slogan-nicknames, either by the Presidents themselves
or by the press, which prefers short phrases that fit headlines. Thus Theodore Roosevelt had his Square Deal, Woodrow Wilson
his New Freedom, FDR his New Deal, Harry Truman his Fair Deal, JFK his New Frontier; Lyndon Johnson outlined his own program
in a speech at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964, naming it the Great Society.

I have come today from the turmoil of your Capitol to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of our country.
The purpose of protecting the life of our nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of
our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a nation. For a century we labored to settle and to
subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty
for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and
elevate our national life and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant
of our needs or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For, in your time, we have the
opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are
totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge
to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a
feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the
demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.

It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it
adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the
quantity of their goods. But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished
work; it is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous
products of our labor.

So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society -- in our cities, in our countryside,
and in our classrooms. Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps fifty years from now, when there will be 400 million
Americans, four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century, urban population will double, city land will
double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled.
So, in the next forty years, we must rebuild the entire urban United States.

Aristotle said, "Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life." It
is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the
centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open
land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated. Worst of all, expansion is eroding the precious and time-honored values
of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.
Our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those
cities, and not beyond their borders. New experiments are already going on. It will be the task of your generation to make
the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live but to live the good life.

I understand that if I stay here tonight I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live the good life.
This is the place where the Peace Corps was started. It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this country,
are trying so hard to live at the level of the people.

A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not
only America the strong and America the free but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink,
the food we eat, the very air that we breathe are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded. Our seashores overburdened.
Green fields and dense forests are disappearing.

A few years ago we were greatly concerned about the Ugly American. Today we must act to prevent an Ugly America. For once
the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with
beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.

A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our
society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are
still far from that goal. Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished
five years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished eight years of school. Nearly 54 million, more than one-quarter
of all America, have not even finished high school.

Each year more than 100,000 high-school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it.
And if we cannot educate today's youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary-school enrollment will be 5 million greater
than 1960? And high-school enrollment will rise by 5 million? College enrollment will increase by more than 3 million? In
many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated. Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many
of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must
not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows
in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as
their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and
the capacity for creation.

These are three of the central issues of the Great Society. While our government has many programs directed at those issues,
I do not pretend that we have the full answer to those problems. But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best
thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America. I intend to establish working
groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education,
and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to
set our course toward the Great Society.

The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources
of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the national Capitol
and the leaders of local communities.

Woodrow Wilson once wrote: "Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time."
Within your lifetime powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our experience,
almost beyond the bounds of our imagination. For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal
with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age.
You can help build a society where the demands of morality and the needs of the spirit can be realized in the life of the
nation.

So will you join the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief,
or race, or the color of his skin? Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of
poverty? Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace as neighbors and not as
mortal enemies? Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation
on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?

There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won, that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree.
We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts if we are to build
that kind of society.

Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a free world. So I have come here today
to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. Let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future
men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full
enrichment of his life.

This occasion is not alone the administration of the most sacred oath which can be assumed by an American citizen. It is a
dedication and consecration under God to the highest office in service of our people. I assume this trust in the humility
of knowledge that only through the guidance of Almighty Providence can I hope to discharge its ever-increasing burdens.

It is in keeping with tradition throughout our history that I should express simply and directly the opinions which I hold
concerning some of the matters of present importance.

Our Progress

If we survey the situation of our Nation both at home and abroad, we find many satisfactions; we find some causes for concern.
We have emerged from the losses of the Great War and the reconstruction following it with increased virility and strength.
From this strength we have contributed to the recovery and progress of the world. What America has done has given renewed
hope and courage to all who have faith in government by the people. In the large view, we have reached a higher degree of
comfort and security than ever existed before in the history of the world. Through liberation from widespread poverty we have
reached a higher degree of individual freedom than ever before. The devotion to and concern for our institutions are deep
and sincere. We are steadily building a new race-a new civilization great in its own attainments. The influence and high purposes
of our Nation are respected among the peoples of the world. We aspire to distinction in the world, but to a distinction based
upon confidence in our sense of justice as well as our accomplishments within our own borders and in our own lives. For wise
guidance in this great period of recovery the Nation is deeply indebted to Calvin Coolidge.

But all this majestic advance should not obscure the constant dangers from which self-government must be safeguarded. The
strong man must at all times be alert to the attack of insidious disease.

The Failure of Our System of Criminal Justice

The most malign of all these dangers today is disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in rigid
and speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that this indicates any decay in the moral fiber of the American
people. I am not prepared to believe that it indicates an impotence of the Federal Government to enforce its laws.

It is only in part due to the additional burdens imposed upon our judicial system by the eighteenth amendment. The problem
is much wider than that. Many influences had increasingly complicated and weakened our law enforcement organization long before
the adoption of the eighteenth amendment.

To reestablish the vigor and effectiveness of law enforcement we must critically consider the entire Federal machinery of
justice, the redistribution of its functions, the simplification of its procedure, the provision of additional special tribunals,
the better selection of juries, and the more effective organization of our agencies of investigation and prosecution that
justice may be sure and that it may be swift. While the authority of the Federal Government extends to but part of our vast
system of national, State, and local justice, yet the standards which the Federal Government establishes have the most profound
influence upon the whole structure.

We are fortunate in the ability and integrity of our Federal judges and attorneys. But the system which these officers are
called upon to administer is in many respects ill adapted to present-day conditions. Its intricate and involved rules of procedure
have become the refuge of both big and little criminals. There is a belief abroad that by invoking technicalities, subterfuge,
and delay, the ends of justice may be thwarted by those who can pay the cost.

Reform, reorganization and strengthening of our whole judicial and enforcement system, both in civil and criminal sides, have
been advocated for years by statesmen, judges, and bar associations. First steps toward that end should not longer be delayed.
Rigid and expeditious justice is the first safeguard of freedom, the basis of all ordered liberty, the vital force of progress.
It must not come to be in our Republic that it can be defeated by the indifference of the citizen, by exploitation of the
delays and entanglements of the law, or by combinations of criminals. Justice must not fail because the agencies of enforcement
are either delinquent or inefficiently organized. To consider these evils, to find their remedy, is the most sore necessity
of our times.

Enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment Of the undoubted abuses which have grown up under the eighteenth amendment, part are
due to the causes I have just mentioned; but part are due to the failure of some States to accept their share of responsibility
for concurrent enforcement and to the failure of many State and local officials to accept the obligation under their oath
of office zealously to enforce the laws. With the failures from these many causes has come a dangerous expansion in the criminal
elements who have found enlarged opportunities in dealing in illegal liquor.

But a large responsibility rests directly upon our citizens. There would be little traffic in illegal liquor if only criminals
patronized it. We must awake to the fact that this patronage from large numbers of law-abiding citizens is supplying the rewards
and stimulating crime.

I have been selected by you to execute and enforce the laws of the country. I propose to do so to the extent of my own abilities,
but the measure of success that the Government shall attain will depend upon the moral support which you, as citizens, extend.
The duty of citizens to support the laws of the land is coequal with the duty of their Government to enforce the laws which
exist. No greater national service can be given by men and women of good will-who, I know, are not unmindful of the responsibilities
of citizenship-than that they should, by their example, assist in stamping out crime and outlawry by refusing participation
in and condemning all transactions with illegal liquor. Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials
elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of disregard for some law
is that it destroys respect for all law. For our citizens to patronize the violation of a particular law on the ground that
they are opposed to it is destructive of the very basis of all that protection of life, of homes and property which they rightly
claim under other laws. If citizens do not like a law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage its violation;
their right is openly to work for its repeal.

To those of criminal mind there can be no appeal but vigorous enforcement of the law. Fortunately they are but a small percentage
of our people. Their activities must be stopped.

A National Investigation

I propose to appoint a national commission for a searching investigation of the whole structure of our Federal system of jurisprudence,
to include the method of enforcement of the eighteenth amendment and the causes of abuse under it. Its purpose will be to
make such recommendations for reorganization of the administration of Federal laws and court procedure as may be found desirable.
In the meantime it is essential that a large part of the enforcement activities be transferred from the Treasury Department
to the Department of Justice as a beginning of more effective organization.

The Relation of Government to Business

The election has again confirmed the determination of the American people that regulation of private enterprise and not Government
ownership or operation is the course rightly to be pursued in our relation to business. In recent years we have established
a differentiation in the whole method of business regulation between the industries which produce and distribute commodities
on the one hand and public utilities on the other. In the former, our laws insist upon effective competition; in the latter,
because we substantially confer a monopoly by limiting competition, we must regulate their services and rates. The rigid enforcement
of the laws applicable to both groups is the very base of equal opportunity and freedom from domination for all our people,
and it is just as essential for the stability and prosperity of business itself as for the protection of the public at large.
Such regulation should be extended by the Federal Government within the limitations of the Constitution and only when the
individual States are without power to protect their citizens through their own authority. On the other hand, we should be
fearless when the authority rests only in the Federal Government.

Cooperation by the Government

The larger purpose of our economic thought should be to establish more firmly stability and security of business and employment
and thereby remove poverty still further from our borders. Our people have in recent years developed a new-found capacity
for cooperation among themselves to effect high purposes in public welfare. It is an advance toward the highest conception
of self-government. Self-government does not and should not imply the use of political agencies alone. Progress is born of
cooperation in the community-not from governmental restraints. The Government should assist and encourage these movements
of collective self-help by itself cooperating with them. Business has by cooperation made great progress in the advancement
of service, in stability, in regularity of employment and in the correction of its own abuses. Such progress, however, can
continue only so long as business manifests its respect for law.

There is an equally important field of cooperation by the Federal Government with the multitude of agencies, State, municipal
and private, in the systematic development of those processes which directly affect public health, recreation, education,
and the home. We have need further to perfect the means by which Government can be adapted to human service.

Education

Although education is primarily a responsibility of the States and local communities, and rightly so, yet the Nation as a
whole is vitally concerned in its development everywhere to the highest standards and to complete universality. Self-government
can succeed only through an instructed electorate. Our objective is not simply to overcome illiteracy. The Nation has marched
far beyond that. The more complex the problems of the Nation become, the greater is the need for more and more advanced instruction.
Moreover, as our numbers increase and as our life expands with science and invention, we must discover more and more leaders
for every walk of life. We can not hope to succeed in directing this increasingly complex civilization unless we can draw
all the talent of leadership from the whole people. One civilization after another has been wrecked upon the attempt to secure
sufficient leadership from a single group or class. If we would prevent the growth of class distinctions and would constantly
refresh our leadership with the ideals of our people, we must draw constantly from the general mass. The full opportunity
for every boy and girl to rise through the selective processes of education can alone secure to us this leadership.

Public Health

In public health the discoveries of science have opened a new era. Many sections of our country and many groups of our citizens
suffer from diseases the eradication of which are mere matters of administration and moderate expenditure. Public health service
should be as fully organized and as universally incorporated into our governmental system as is public education. The returns
are a thousand fold in economic benefits, and infinitely more in reduction of suffering and promotion of human happiness.

World Peace

The United States fully accepts the profound truth that our own progress, prosperity, and peace are interlocked with the progress,
prosperity, and peace of all humanity. The whole world is at peace. The dangers to a continuation of this peace to-day are
largely the fear and suspicion which still haunt the world. No suspicion or fear can be rightly directed toward our country.

Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other
domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom. Our form of government is ill adapted
to the responsibilities which inevitably follow permanent limitation of the independence of other peoples. Superficial observers
seem to find no destiny for our abounding increase in population, in wealth and power except that of imperialism. They fail
to see that the American people are engrossed in the building for themselves of a new economic system, a new social system,
a new political system all of which are characterized by aspirations of freedom of opportunity and thereby are the negation
of imperialism. They fail to realize that because of our abounding prosperity our youth are pressing more and more into our
institutions of learning; that our people are seeking a larger vision through art, literature, science, and travel; that they
are moving toward stronger moral and spiritual life-that from these things our sympathies are broadening beyond the bounds
of our Nation and race toward their true expression in a real brotherhood of man. They fail to see that the idealism of America
will lead it to no narrow or selfish channel, but inspire it to do its full share as a nation toward the advancement of civilization.
It will do that not by mere declaration but by taking a practical part in supporting all useful international undertakings.
We not only desire peace with the world, but to see peace maintained throughout the world. We wish to advance the reign of
justice and reason toward the extinction of force.

The recent treaty for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy sets an advanced standard in our conception
of the relations of nations. Its acceptance should pave the way to greater limitation of armament, the offer of which we sincerely
extend to the world. But its full realization also implies a greater and greater perfection in the instrumentalities for pacific
settlement of controversies between nations. In the creation and use of these instrumentalities we should support every sound
method of conciliation, arbitration, and judicial settlement. American statesmen were among the first to propose and they
have constantly urged upon the world, the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of controversies of a justiciable
character. The Permanent Court of International Justice in its major purpose is thus peculiarly identified with American ideals
and with American statesmanship. No more potent instrumentality for this purpose has ever been conceived and no other is practicable
of establishment. The reservations placed upon our adherence should not be misinterpreted. The United States seeks by these
reservations no special privilege or advantage but only to clarify our relation to advisory opinions and other matters which
are subsidiary to the major purpose of the court. The way should, and I believe will, be found by which we may take our proper
place in a movement so fundamental to the progress of peace.

Our people have determined that we should make no political engagements such as membership in the League of Nations, which
may commit us in advance as a nation to become involved in the settlements of controversies between other countries. They
adhere to the belief that the independence of America from such obligations increases its ability and availability for service
in all fields of human progress.

I have lately returned from a journey among our sister Republics of the Western Hemisphere. I have received unbounded hospitality
and courtesy as their expression of friendliness to our country. We are held by particular bonds of sympathy and common interest
with them. They are each of them building a racial character and a culture which is an impressive contribution to human progress.
We wish only for the maintenance of their independence, the growth of their stability, and their prosperity. While we have
had wars in the Western Hemisphere, yet on the whole the record is in encouraging contrast with that of other parts of the
world. Fortunately the New World is largely free from the inheritances of fear and distrust which have so troubled the Old
World. We should keep it so.

It is impossible, my countrymen, to speak of peace without profound emotion. In thousands of homes in America, in millions
of homes around the world, there are vacant chairs. It would be a shameful confession of our unworthiness if it should develop
that we have abandoned the hope for which all these men died. Surely civilization is old enough, surely mankind is mature
enough so that we ought in our own lifetime to find a way to permanent peace. Abroad, to west and east, are nations whose
sons mingled their blood with the blood of our sons on the battlefields. Most of these nations have contributed to our race,
to our culture, our knowledge, and our progress. From one of them we derive our very language and from many of them much of
the genius of our institutions. Their desire for peace is as deep and sincere as our own.

Peace can be contributed to by respect for our ability in defense. Peace can be promoted by the limitation of arms and by
the creation of the instrumentalities for peaceful settlement of controversies. But it will become a reality only through
self-restraint and active effort in friendliness and helpfulness. I covet for this administration a record of having further
contributed to advance the cause of peace.

Party Responsibilities

In our form of democracy the expression of the popular will can be effected only through the instrumentality of political
parties. We maintain party government not to promote intolerant partisanship but because opportunity must be given for expression
of the popular will, and organization provided for the execution of its mandates and for accountability of government to the
people. It follows that the government both in the executive and the legislative branches must carry out in good faith the
platforms upon which the party was entrusted with power. But the government is that of the whole people; the party is the
instrument through which policies are determined and men chosen to bring them into being. The animosities of elections should
have no place in our Government, for government must concern itself alone with the common weal.

Special Session of the Congress

Action upon some of the proposals upon which the Republican Party was returned to power, particularly further agricultural
relief and limited changes in the tariff, cannot in justice to our farmers, our labor, and our manufacturers be postponed.
I shall therefore request a special session of Congress for the consideration of these two questions. I shall deal with each
of them upon the assembly of the Congress.

Other Mandates from the Election

It appears to me that the more important further mandates from the recent election were the maintenance of the integrity of
the Constitution; the vigorous enforcement of the laws; the continuance of economy in public expenditure; the continued regulation
of business to prevent domination in the community; the denial of ownership or operation of business by the Government in
competition with its citizens; the avoidance of policies which would involve us in the controversies of foreign nations; the
more effective reorganization of the departments of the Federal Government; the expansion of public works; and the promotion
of welfare activities affecting education and the home.

These were the more tangible determinations of the election, but beyond them was the confidence and belief of the people that
we would not neglect the support of the embedded ideals and aspirations of America. These ideals and aspirations are the touchstones
upon which the day-to-day administration and legislative acts of government must be tested. More than this, the Government
must, so far as lies within its proper powers, give leadership to the realization of these ideals and to the fruition of these
aspirations. No one can adequately reduce these things of the spirit to phrases or to a catalogue of definitions. We do know
what the attainments of these ideals should be: The preservation of self-government and its full foundations in local government;
the perfection of justice whether in economic or in social fields; the maintenance of ordered liberty; the denial of domination
by any group or class; the building up and preservation of equality of opportunity; the stimulation of initiative and individuality;
absolute integrity in public affairs; the choice of officials for fitness to office; the direction of economic progress toward
prosperity for the further lessening of poverty; the freedom of public opinion; the sustaining of education and of the advancement
of knowledge; the growth of religious spirit and the tolerance of all faiths; the strengthening of the home; the advancement
of peace.

There is no short road to the realization of these aspirations. Ours is a progressive people, but with a determination that
progress must be based upon the foundation of experience. Ill-considered remedies for our faults bring only penalties after
them. But if we hold the faith of the men in our mighty past who created these ideals, we shall leave them heightened and
strengthened for our children.

Conclusion

This is not the time and place for extended discussion. The questions before our country are problems of progress to higher
standards; they are not the problems of degeneration. They demand thought and they serve to quicken the conscience and enlist
our sense of responsibility for their settlement. And that responsibility rests upon you, my countrymen, as much as upon those
of us who have been selected for office.

Ours is a land rich in resources; stimulating in its glorious beauty; filled with millions of happy homes; blessed with comfort
and opportunity. In no nation are the institutions of progress more advanced. In no nation are the fruits of accomplishment
more secure. In no nation is the government more worthy of respect. No country is more loved by its people. I have an abiding
faith in their capacity, integrity, and high purpose. I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope.

In the presence of my countrymen, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, knowing what the task means and the responsibility
which it involves, I beg your tolerance, your aid, and your cooperation. I ask the help of Almighty God in this service to
my country to which you have called me.

Congress attempted to end bimetallism in 1853 by abolishing silver coins, but neglected to mention silver dollars in its bill,
so the country remained on a two-metal standard until a revision of the law in 1873. Advocates of a "free silver" policy --
coinage of silver to gold at a ratio of 16 to 1 -- opposed both measures and defended their position with four arguments:
that the single-standard law of 1873 had been railroaded through Congress; that silver "hard money" was the coin of the common
people; that the Panic of 1873 was brought on by the "demonetization" of silver; and that the institution of a free silver
policy would increase the supply of money and end the depression. These theories had special appeal for the poorer classes
and the economically unsophisticated, and the Democratic Party gave enough support to pass a free silver bill in the Senate
in January 1891. Most observers expected Democrat Grover Cleveland to join the silver cause, but he stated his refusal to
do so in the following letter of February 10, 1891, addressed to E. Ellery Anderson of the Reform Club of New York.

Dear Sir:

I have this afternoon received your note inviting me to attend tomorrow evening the meeting called for the purpose of voicing
the opposition of the businessmen of our city to "the free coinage of silver in the United States."

I shall not be able to attend and address the meeting as you request, but I am glad that the business interests of New York
are at last to be heard on this subject. It surely cannot be necessary for me to make a formal expression of my agreement
with those who believe that the greatest peril would be invited by the adoption of the scheme, embraced in the measure now
pending in Congress, for the unlimited coinage of silver at our mints.

If we have developed an unexpected capacity for the assimilation of a largely increased volume of this currency, and even
if we have demonstrated the usefulness of such an increase, these conditions fall far short of insuring us against disaster
if, in the present situation, we enter upon the dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited, and independent silver
coinage.

The campaign of 1912 pitted four remarkable men against each other for the presidency, all of them with significant reform
backgrounds. William Howard Taft, the incumbent, had the support of the regular Republicans and of some of the old-guard Progressives.
Theodore Roosevelt was backed by most of the Progressives, who had banded together to organize the rump Republican "Bull Moose"
Party. Eugene Debs was the Socialist candidate. And Woodrow Wilson, the enlightened governor of New Jersey, ex-professor of
political science and ex-president of Princeton University, was the choice of the Democrats. Failing at first to find an issue
with which to stir the voters, Wilson was persuaded by Louis D. Brandeis to stress the problem of the trusts, and with his
oratorical gifts he was able to turn it into what was almost a one-man crusade. A portion of Wilson's campaign speech at Lincoln,
Nebraska, delivered on October 5, 1912, is reprinted here.

We are not going to discuss tonight the sympathies, the susceptibilities, the enthusiasms of the several men who are seeking
your suffrages for President of the United States. I am perfectly ready to believe and will admit for the sake of argument
that Mr. Roosevelt's heart and soul are committed to that part of the third-term program which contains those hopeful plans
of human betterment in which so many noble men and women in this country have enlisted their sympathies and their energies.

I am not here to criticize anybody who has been drawn to that party because of that part of the program. But I want to call
their attention to the fact that you can't have a program that you can carry out through a resisting and unsuitable medium,
and that the thing that it is absolutely necessary for every candid voter to remember with regard to the third party is that
the means of government, the means of getting the things that this country needs, are exactly the same on that side that they
are on the side where Mr. Taft seeks the suffrages of the country.

Because, while the party of Mr. Taft says in its platform that monopoly ought not to exist, the section of the Republican
Party that is following Mr. Roosevelt subscribes to the statement that monopoly ought to be adopted by the law, and by regulation
should be the governing force in the development of American industry. So that all that the third party asks of the monopolists
is that they should cooperate, and the only hope of a program of human uplift from that party is that the monopolists will
cooperate.

Have you got any hopes in that direction? Don't you know what the Republican Party has provided you with up to this time?
I have taken special pains to clear from my own mind, at any rate, the Republican conception of government. That conception
is that the people cannot organize their opinion in such fashion as to control their own government. And that, therefore,
it is necessary constantly to consult those whose material interests in the development of the country are larger than anybody
else's, and then, through the hands of these trustees, administer the government, not through the people but for the people.

I am perfectly ready to believe -- knowing some of the men concerned as I do, I must believe --that a great many men now engaged
in the promotion of monopoly in this country really wish to see the United States prosperous, and really desire to adopt the
means that will make it prosperous. But they are not willing to let anybody else yield the means of prosperity except themselves.
I wonder at the frame of mind which makes them believe that they are the trustees of political discretion in this country,
but I am willing to admit for the sake of argument that that is their candid and deliberate judgment.

What we have to fight, therefore, is not a body of deliberate enemies, it may be, but a body of mistaken men. And what I want
to point out to you is that Mr. Roosevelt subscribes to the judgment of these mistaken men as to the influences which should
govern America. That is the serious part of it. Mr. Roosevelt's judgment has been captured. Mr. Roosevelt's idea of the way
in which the industries of this country ought to be controlled has been captured. He does not propose to set us free. He proposes
to use monopoly in order to make us happy. And the project is one of those projects which all history cries out against as
impossible.

The Democratic platform is the only platform which says that private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable, and any man
who does not subscribe to that opinion does not know the way to set the people of the United States free, and to serve humanity.
All that Mr. Roosevelt is asking you to do is to elect him president of the board of trustees. I do not care how wise, how
patriotic the trustees may be; I have never heard of any group of men in whose hands I am willing to put the liberties of
America in trust. And, therefore, I am not in this campaign engaged in doubting any man's motives. I merely want to point
out that these gentlemen are not proposing the methods of liberty but are proposing the methods of control. A control among
a free people is intolerable.

I have been very much interested the last day or two in having described to me the industries of some of these smaller Western
cities. I known in Indiana, for example, town after town was pointed out to me that still has the American characteristic,
in which there are factories upon factories owned by men who live in the place -- independent enterprises still unabsorbed
by the great economic combinations which have become so threateningly inhuman in our economic organization -- and it seems
to me that these are outposts and symbols of the older and freer America. And after I had traveled through that series of
towns and met the sturdy people that live in them, I entered in the city of Gary, which is a little way outside of Chicago,
and realized that I had come from the older America into the newer America. But this was a town owned and built by a single
monopolistic corporation. And I wondered which kind of America the people of America, if they could see this picture as I
saw it, would choose?

Which do you want? Do you want to live in a town patronized by some great combination of capitalists who pick it out as a
suitable place to plant their industry and draw you into their employment? Or do you want to see your sons and your brothers
and your husbands build up business for themselves under the protection of laws which make it impossible for any giant, however
big, to crush them and put them out of business, so that they can match their wits here in the midst of a free country with
any captain of industry or merchant of finance to be found anywhere in the world, and put every man who now assumes to control
and promote monopoly upon his mettle to beat them at initiative, at economy, at the organization of business, and the cheap
production of salable goods? Which do you want?

Why, gentlemen, America is never going to submit to monopoly. America is never going to choose thralldom instead of freedom.
Look what there is to decide! There is the tariff question. Can the tariff question be decided in favor of the people of the
United States so long as the monopolies are the chief counselors at Washington? There is the great currency question. You
know how difficult it is to move your crops every year. And I tremble, I must frankly tell you, to think of the bumper crops
that are now coming from our fields, because they are going to need enormous bodies of cash to move them.

You have got to get that cash by calling in your loans and embarrassing people in every center of commercial activity, because
there isn't cash enough under our inelastic currency to lend itself to this instrumentality. And are we going to settle the
currency question so long as the government of the United States listens only to the counsel of those who command the banking
situation in the United States? You can't solve the tariff, you can't solve the currency question under the domination which
is proposed by one branch of the Republican Party and tolerated by the other.

Then there is the great question of conservation. What is our fear about conservation? The hands that will be stretched out
to monopolize our forests, to preempt the use of our great power-producing streams, the hands that will be stretched into
the bowels of the earth to take possession of the great riches that lie hidden in Alaska and elsewhere in the incomparable
domain of the United States are the hands of monopoly. And is this thing merely to be regulated? Is this thing to be legalized?
Are these men to continue to stand at the elbow of government and tell us how we are to save ourselves from the very things
that we fear? You can't settle the question of conservation while monopoly exists if monopoly is close to the ears of those
who govern. And the question of conservation is a great deal bigger than the question of saving our forests and our mineral
resources and our waters. It is as big as the life and happiness and strength and elasticity and hope of our people.

The government of the United States has now to look out upon her people and see what they need, what should be done for them.
Why, gentlemen, there are tasks waiting the government of the United States which it cannot perform until every pulse of that
government beats in unison with the needs and the desires of the whole body of the American people. Shall we not give the
people access of sympathy, access of counsel, access of authority to the instrumentalities which are to be indispensable to
their lives?

When I think of the great things to be accomplished and then think of the danger that there is that the people of the United
States will not choose free instruments to accomplish them, then I tremble to think of the verdict that may be rendered on
the 5th of November. But when you look around when going through America, as I have recently been going through it, your heart
rises again. Why, two years ago when I was running for governor in New Jersey, I used to come away from public meetings with
a certain burden on my heart, because I knew I was not mistaken in feeling that I had seen in the faces and felt in the atmosphere
of the great meetings that I addressed a certain sense of foreboding and anxiety as a people who were anxious about their
future.

But I haven't seen anything of that kind in the year 1912. The people of the United States now know what they intend to do.
They intend to take charge of their own affairs again and they see the way to do it. Great outpourings like this are not in
compliment to an individual; they are in demonstration of a purpose. And all I have to say for the Democratic candidate for
the presidency is that I pray God he may be shown the way not to disappoint the expectations of such people.

Only you can show him the way. You can't do it by proxy. You must determine the interests of your own life and then find spokesmen
for those interests who will speak them as fairly as men have learned how to speak in Nebraska. The great emancipation which
has been wrought for you by the fight for progressive democracy which has gone on from splendid stage to splendid stage in
this state is that it has raised up for you men who fearlessly speak the truth. And that is not true of all parts of the country.

Why, there are parts of the country where I am considered brave if I speak in words what every man and woman in the audience
knows to be true. Now, I have never known what it was to exercise courage when I knew that the stars in all their courses
were fighting my way. Do you suppose a man needs be courageous to speak the truth, to attach his puny force to the great voice
of the country which is truth itself? A man would be a coward that wouldn't speak the truth. A man would be a fool who didn't
see that the only puissance in human affairs was the irresistible force of truth itself, and men are weak in proportion as
they are mistaken; they are weak in proportion as their judgments are misled; they are weak in proportion as they do not see
the practical terms into which the truth can be translated. But they are not courageous when they merely tell the truth, because,
if they lie because they were afraid, do you suppose they would have very comfortable moments when they withdraw into the
privacy of their own family?

I wonder how some men sleep of nights because they deceive themselves and deceive others all day long, and then actually go
home and go to sleep. I don't know what their dreams can be. And they speak the things that they know are not true because
they are afraid of something.

Fear is abroad in free America. There are men who dare not undertake certain business enterprises because they know that they
would be crushed. There are men who dare not speak certain opinions because they know that they would be boycotted in influential
circles upon which their credit and their advancement in their business depends.

Do you suppose that it is singular that men should rise up and fight through half a generation as your own champions have
fought in order to dispel that fear? The only way to dispel fear is to bring the things that you are afraid of out in the
open and challenge them there to meet the great moral force of the people of the United States. So that if these gentlemen
will come out and avow their purposes, they will destroy all possibility of realizing those purposes.

One of the fine things of our time is that the whole game is disclosed. We now know the processes of monopoly, and we therefore
know the processes of law by which monopoly can be destroyed. They have shown their hands and we know how to stay their use
of illegitimate power.

Will we do them any damage? I tell you frankly that if I thought that any considerable portion of the enterprising men of
America would be injured by the policies that I am interested in, I would hesitate. But I am clear in the conviction that
to set the people of the United States free is to set the big enterprises free along with the little ones, because I have
never heard of any business conditions which were dependent upon the subservience of great business, of enterprising businessmen.
If you have to be subservient, you aren't even making the rich fellows as rich as they might be, because you are not adding
your originative force to the extraordinary production of wealth in America.

America is as rich, not as Wall Street, not as the financial centers in Chicago and St. Louis and San Francisco; it is as
rich as the people that make its centers rich. And if those people hesitate in their enterprise, cowering in the face of power,
hesitate to originate designs of their own, then the very fountains which make these places abound in wealth are dried up
at the source; so that by setting the little men of America free you are not damaging the giants. You are merely making them
behave like human beings.

Now, a giant ought to have more human nature in him than a Pygmy, and we want to reread the Decalogue to these big men who
may not have heard it in some time. And by moralizing, we are going to set them free and their business free.

It may be that certain things will happen, for monopoly in this country is carrying a body of water such as no body of men
ought to be asked to carry. And when by regulated competition -- that is to say, fair competition, competition that fights
fair -- they are put upon their mettle, they will have to economize in their processes of business, and they can't economize
unless they drop that water. I do not know how to squeeze the water out but they will get rid of it, if you will put them
on their mettle. They will have to get rid of it, or those of us who don't carry tanks will outrun them in the race. Put all
the business of America upon the footing of economy and efficiency, and then let the race be to the strongest and the efficient.

So that our program is a program of prosperity, only it is a program of prosperity that is a little more pervasive to the
present program, and pervasive prosperity is more fruitful than that which is narrow and restrictive.

I congratulate the monopolists of the United States that they are not going to have their way, because, quite contrary to
the old theory, the people of the United States are wiser than they are. The people of the United States understand the United
States as these gentlemen do not, and if they will only give us leave, we will not only make them rich but we will make them
happy, because then our consciences will have less to carry. They are waking up to this fact, ladies and gentlemen. The businessmen
of this country are not deluded, and not all of the big business of this country are deluded.

Some men who have been led into wrong practice, who have been led into the practice of monopoly because that seemed to be
the drift and inevitable method of supremacy of their times, are just as ready as we are to turn about and adopt the processes
of freedom, because American hearts beat in a lot of those men just as they beat under our jackets. They will be as glad to
be free as we have been to set them free. And then the splendid force which has led to the things that hurt us will lead to
the things than benefit us.

We are coming to a common understanding, and only a common understanding is the tolerable basis of a free government. I congratulate
you, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, that you are now coming to that point of fruition of which you have dreamed and for
which you have planned in Nebraska for more than half a generation. . . .

What we propose, therefore, in this program of freedom, is a program of general advantage. Almost every monopoly that has
resisted extinction has resisted the real interests of its own stockholders. And it has been very, very slow business convincing
those who were responsible for the business of the country that that was the fact. After the 4th of March next, therefore,
we are going to get together; we are going to stop serving special interests, and we are going to stop setting one interest
up against another interest. We are not going to champion one set of people against another set of people, but we are going
to see what common counsel can accomplish for the happiness and redemption of America.

Many of the "pet banks" in which federal funds had been deposited defaulted during the Panic of 1837. As a consequence of
the bank failures and the inability to raise public funds in an economy beset by a servere depression, it appeared that the
current expenses of the federal government could not be covered. To deal with this situation, Martin Van Buren, the newly
elected President, called a special session of Congress that assembled in Washington on September 4, 1837. To solve the fiscal
problems of the government, Van Buren proposed a further extension of the hard-money policy and backed an independent treasury.
The proposal, which in effect meant that the government would handle its own funds and require payment in legal tender, was
the final step in the divorce of bank and state that Jackson had initiated. The business community, which had been hoping
for a revival of the National Bank, smoldered in silence. A portion of Van Buren's message is reprinted below.

Two nations, the most commercial in the world, enjoying but recently the highest degree of apparent prosperity and maintaining
with each other the closest relations, are suddenly, in a time of profound peace and without any great national disaster,
arrested in their career and plunged into a state of embarrassment and distress. In both countries we have witnessed the same
redundancy of paper money and other facilities of credit; the same spirit of speculation; the same partial successes; the
same difficulties and reverses; and, at length, nearly the same overwhelming catastrophe. The most material difference between
the results in the two countries has only been that with us there has also occurred an extensive derangement in the fiscal
affairs of the federal and state governments, occasioned by the suspension of specie payments by the banks.

The history of these causes and effects in Great Britain and the United States is substantially the history of the revulsion
in all other commercial countries.

The present and visible effects of these circumstances on the operations of the government and on the industry of the people
point out the objects which call for your immediate attention.

They are: to regulate by law the safekeeping, transfer, and disbursement of the public moneys; to designate the funds to be
received and paid by the government; to enable the Treasury to meet promptly every demand upon it; to prescribe the terms
of indulgence and the mode of settlement to be adopted, as well in collecting from individuals the revenue that has accrued
as in withdrawing it from former depositories; and to devise and adopt such further measures, within the constitutional competency
of Congress, as will be best calculated to revive the enterprise and to promote the prosperity of the country. . . .

The plan proposed will be adequate to all our fiscal operations during the remainder of the year. Should it be adopted, the
Treasury, aided by the ample resources of the country, will be able to discharge punctually every pecuniary obligation. For
the future all that is needed will be that caution and forbearance in appropriations which the diminution of the revenue requires
and which the complete accomplishment or great forwardness of many expensive national undertakings renders equally consistent
with prudence and patriotic liberality.

The preceding suggestions and recommendations are submitted in the belief that their adoption by Congress will enable the
Executive Department to conduct our fiscal concerns with success so far as their management has been committed to it. While
the objects and the means proposed to attain them are within its constitutional powers and appropriate duties, they will,
at the same time, it is hoped, by their necessary operation, afford essential aid in the transaction of individual concerns,
and thus yield relief to the people at large in a form adapted to the nature of our government. Those who look to the action
of this government for specific aid to the citizen to relieve embarrassments arising from losses by revulsions in commerce
and credit lose sight of the ends for which it was created and the powers with which it is clothed.

It was established to give security to us all in our lawful and honorable pursuits, under the lasting safeguard of republican
institutions. It was not intended to confer special favors on individuals or on any classes of them, to create systems of
agriculture, manufactures, or trade, or to engage in them either separately or in connection with individual citizens or organized
associations. If its operations were to be directed for the benefit of any one class, equivalent favors must in justice be
extended to the rest; and the attempt to bestow such favors with an equal hand, or even to select those who should most deserve
them, would never be successful.

All communities are apt to look to government for too much. Even in our own country, where its powers and duties are so strictly
limited, we are prone to do so, especially at periods of sudden embarrassment and distress. But this ought not to be. The
framers of our excellent Constitution and the people who approved it with calm and sagacious deliberation acted at the time
on a sounder principle. They wisely judged that the less government interferes with private pursuits the better for the general
prosperity. It is not its legitimate object to make men rich or to repair by direct grants of money or legislation in favor
of particular pursuits, losses not incurred in the public service. This would be substantially to use the property of some
for the benefit of others. But its real duty -- that duty the performance of which makes a good government the most precious
of human blessings -- is to enact and enforce a system of general laws commensurate with, but not exceeding, the objects of
its establishment, and to leave every citizen and every interest to reap under its benign protection the rewards of virtue,
industry, and prudence.

I cannot doubt that on this as on all similar occasions the federal government will find its agency most conducive to the
security and happiness of the people when limited to the exercise of its conceded powers. In never assuming, even for a well-meant
object, such powers as were not designed to be conferred upon it, we shall in reality do most for the general welfare. To
avoid every unnecessary interference with the pursuits of the citizen will result in more benefit than to adopt measures which
could only assist limited interests, and are eagerly, but perhaps naturally, sought for under the pressure of temporary circumstances.
If, therefore, I refrain from suggesting to Congress any specific plan for regulating the exchanges of the country, relieving
mercantile embarrassments, or interfering with the ordinary operations of foreign or domestic commerce, it is from a conviction
that such measures are not within the constitutional province of the general government, and that their adoption would not
promote the real and permanent welfare of those they might be designed to aid.

The difficulties and distresses of the times, though unquestionably great, are limited in their extent, and cannot be regarded
as affecting the permanent prosperity of the nation. Arising in a great degree from the transactions of foreign and domestic
commerce, it is upon them that they have chiefly fallen. The great agricultural interest has in many parts of the country
suffered comparatively little, and, as if Providence intended to display the munificence of its goodness at the moment of
our greatest need, and in direct contrast to the evils occasioned by the waywardness of man, we have been blessed throughout
our extended territory with a season of general health and of uncommon fruitfulness.

The proceeds of our great staples will soon furnish the means of liquidating debts at home and abroad, and contribute equally
to the revival of commercial activity and the restoration of commercial credit. The banks, established avowedly for its support,
deriving their profits from it, and resting under obligations to it which cannot be overlooked, will feel at once the necessity
and justice of uniting their energies with those of the mercantile interest.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, vol. 3, James D. Richardson, ed., 1920, pp. 324-346.

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and
a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth,
frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my
firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed
efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met
with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again
give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values
have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious
curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise
lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little
return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which
our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers
her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very
sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own
stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers
stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit
they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow
their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the
rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the
ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The
joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will
be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves
and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false
belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal
profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness
of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the
sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It
can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency
of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize
the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging
on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.
The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase
the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure
of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith
on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are
often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation
and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be
helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order;
there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other
people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment,
and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo.
Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment
of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore
world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence,
as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States-a recognition
of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is
the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor-the neighbor who resolutely respects
himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others-the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the
sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each
other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal
army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership
becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes
possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon
us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined
attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors.
Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis
and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly
enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign
wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented
task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure
from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world
may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek,
within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency
is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the
one remaining instrument to meet the crisis-broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power
that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking
old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young
alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they
have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership.
They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me
in the days to come.

Unlike most of his fellow Republicans, President Rutherford B. Hayes held an unsympathetic attitude toward the trusts. This
was one of many issues that caused Hayes to lose the support of portions of the party early in his administration. Having
left the White House in 1881 after only one term, Hayes retired to his Ohio home and occupied himself with enlarging his library,
fulfilling numerous speaking engagements, and working for humanitarian causes. His concern over the power of concentrated
wealth is illustrated by the following passages from his diary; they were written in 1886 and 1887.

January 22, 1886. Friday. How to distribute more equally the property of our country is a question we (Theodore Clapp and I) considered yesterday.
We ought not to allow a permanent aristocracy of inherited wealth to grow up in our country. How would it answer to limit
the amount that could be left to any one person by will or otherwise? What should be the limit? Let no one receive from another
more than the law gives to the chief justice, to the general of the Army, or to the president of the Senate. Let the income
of the property transmitted equal this, say $10,000 to $20,000. If after distributing on this principle there remains undistributed
part of the estate, let it go to the public. The object is to secure a distribution of great estates to prevent accumulation.

January 24. Sunday. The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no
republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property.
To begin the work, as a first step, prevent large estates from passing, by wills or by inheritance or by corporations, into
the hands of a single man. Let no man get by inheritance or by will more than will produce at 4 percent interest an income
equal to the salary paid to the chief justice, to the general of the Army, or to the highest officer of the Navy--say an income
of $15,000 per year or an estate of $500,000....

March 17. Wednesday. I go to Toledo to attend the celebration of St. Patrick's Day by Father Hannan's people. I shall talk to the text, "America,
the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave," with special reference to Father Hannan's motto "Religion, Education, Temperance,
Industry"; and this again in behalf of such measures and laws as will give to every workingman a reasonable hope that by industry,
temperance, and frugality he can secure a home for himself and his family, education for his children, and a comfortable support
for old age.

March 18. Thursday. At Toledo yesterday and until 1 P.M. today. At Father Hannan's St. Patrick's Institute last evening. I spoke of the danger
from riches in a few hands, and the poverty of the masses. The capital and labor question. General Comly regards the speech as important.
My point is that free government cannot long endure if property is largely in a few hands and large masses of the people are
unable to earn homes, education, and a support in old age....

March 19. Friday. No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world
as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality.
The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good. Such men as Benjamin Franklin and Peter Cooper knew how to
use wealth. But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands.

March 20. Saturday. The funeral of General Devereux (at Cleveland today) was largely attended. With General Leggett, General Barnett, and General
Elwell, and many others of the Loyal Legion--those named as honorary pallbearers--saw and heard all that belonged to the impressive
funeral. The leading traits of General Devereux were unusual tact in dealing with all sorts of men and all sorts of difficult
questions, courage, and integrity. The president of the New York Central, Mr. (Chauncey M.) Depew, introduced me to Cornelius
Vanderbilt. I could not help regarding him with sympathy. One of our Republican kings--one of our railroad kings. Think of
the inconsistency of allowing such vast and irresponsible power as he possesses to be vested by law in the hands of one man!

March 26. Friday. Am I mistaken in thinking that we are drawing near the time when we must decide to limit and control great wealth, corporations,
and the like, or resort to a strong military government? Is this the urgent question? I read in the (Cleveland) Leader of this morning that Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden lectured in Cleveland last night on "Capital and Labor." Many good things
were said. The general drift and spirit were good. But he leaves out our railroad system. Shall the railroads govern the country,
or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chiefly regarded, or shall the interest
of the people be paramount?

May 12. Wednesday. On the labor question, my position is: 1. The previous question always must be in any popular excitement the supremacy of law. All lawless violence must be suppressed instantly, with overwhelming force and at all hazards. To hesitate or tamper with it is a fatal mistake. Justice, humanity, and safety all require this. 2. I agree that labor does not get its fair share of the wealth it creates. The Sermon on the Mount, the
Golden Rule, the Declaration of Independence, all require extensive reforms to the end that labor may be so rewarded that
the workingman can, with temperance, industry, and thrift, own a home, educate his children, and lay up a support for old age. 3. The United States must begin to deal with the whole subject. I approve heartily of President Cleveland's message and so
said at the great soldiers' meeting at Cleveland.

February 25, 1887. Friday. As to pensions I would say our Union soldiers fought in the divinest war that was ever waged. Our war did more for our country
than any other war ever achieved for any other country. It did more for the world, more for mankind, than any other war in
all history. It gave to those who remained at home and to those who come after it in our country opportunities, prosperity,
wealth, a future, such as no war ever before conferred on any part of the human race.

No soldier who fought in that war on the right side nor his widow nor his orphans ought ever to be forced to choose between
starvation and the poorhouse. Lincoln in his last inaugural address--just before the war closed, when the last enlistments
were going on--pledged the nation "to care for him who hath borne the battle and for his widow and his orphans." Let that
sacred pledge be sacredly kept.

December 4. Sunday. In church it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the giant evil and danger in this country, the danger
which transcends all others, is the vast wealth owned or controlled by a few persons. Money is power. In Congress, in state
legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of
the educated and the talented its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means
extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many. It is not yet time to debate about the remedy.

The previous question is as to the danger--the evil. Let the people be fully informed and convinced as to the evil. Let them
earnestly seek the remedy and it will be found. Fully to know the evil is the first step toward reaching its eradication.
Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system. We are, to say the least, not yet ready for
his remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, wills,
trusts, taxation, and a host of other important interests, not omitting lands and other property.

On November 4, 2008, Democrat Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to win the country"s highest office. Joined by his wife, Michelle, and the couple"s
two young daughters, Sasha and Malia, Obama addressed his fans and friends in Chicago"s Grant Park, which 40 years earlier
had been the scene of a violent confrontation between city police and demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention.
In front of an estimated 90,000 to 240,000 people who descended upon the park to celebrate his election—a crowd whose diversity
reflected Obama"s appeal across racial, gender, and generational lines—Obama acknowledged the historic nature of his victory
and painted his vision of hope for a country fighting in two wars and facing the worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression.

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if
the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It"s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people
who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be
different, that their voices could be that difference.

It"s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American,
gay, straight, disabled, and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection
of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It"s the answer that led those who"ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we
can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It"s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change
has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he"s fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He
has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by
this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they"ve achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew
this nation"s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up
with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States,
Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years, the rock
of our family, the love of my life, the nation"s next first lady, Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that"s coming with us to the
new White House.

And while she"s no longer with us, I know my grandmother"s watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them
tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you"ve given
me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best—the best political campaign,
I think, in the history of the United States of America.

To my chief strategist David Axelrod who"s been a partner with me every step of the way.

To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what
you"ve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn"t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was
not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front
porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give &dollar;5 and
&dollar;10 and &dollar;20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation"s apathy, who left their homes and their
families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers,
and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government
of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn"t do this just to win an election. And I know you didn"t do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the
challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime—two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis
in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan
to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they"ll make the mortgage or
pay their doctors" bills or save enough for their child"s college education.

There"s new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America,
I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won"t agree with every decision or policy I make as president.
And we know the government can"t solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And,
above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it"s been done in America for 221 years—block
by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if
we go back to the way things were.

It can"t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and
look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it"s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main
Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let"s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship
and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let"s remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House,
a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure
of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need
your help. And I will be your president, too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios
in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership
is at hand.

To those—to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you.
And to all those who have wondered if America"s beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength
of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals:
democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

That"s the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we"ve already achieved gives
us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that"s on my mind tonight"s about
a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She"s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard
in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone
like her couldn"t vote for two reasons—because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she"s seen throughout her century in America—the heartache and the hope; the struggle
and the progress; the times we were told that we can"t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women"s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach
for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the Dust Bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal,
new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness
and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told
a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America,
through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves—if our
children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what
change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote
the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that
while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can"t, we will respond
with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

On September 27, 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, thus bringing Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere" within the Axis coalition. From that time on, American resistance to Japanese expansionism increased. Negotiations
between Japan and the United States toward a peaceful solution of Far Eastern problems were still under way when, on December
7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next day, President Roosevelt went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Japan. On December
9 he spoke to the nation by radio, describing the events that had led to war. The message of December 8 and portions of the
radio address are reprinted below. The United States formally entered the war against Germany and Italy on December 11.

I.

Message to Congress

Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately
attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government
and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had
commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the secretary of state
a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic
negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many
days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United
States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American
lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and
Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak
for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to
the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated
invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will
of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very
certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces--with the unbounded determination of our people--we will gain the inevitable triumph--so
help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, a state of
war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

II.

Fireside Chat

The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated by the Japanese in the Pacific provide the climax of a decade of international immorality.

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been
flung at the United States of America. The Japanese have treacherously violated the long-standing peace between us. Many American
soldiers and sailors have been killed by enemy action. American ships have been sunk, American airplanes have been destroyed.

The Congress and the people of the United States have accepted that challenge.

Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom and
in common decency, without fear of assault. . . .

We are now in this war. We are all in it--all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous
undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories--the
changing fortunes of war.

So far, the news has all been bad. We have suffered a serious setback in Hawaii. Our forces in the Philippines, which include
the brave people of that commonwealth, are taking punishment, but are defending themselves vigorously. The reports from Guam
and Wake and Midway islands are still confused, but we must be prepared for the announcement that all these three outposts
have been seized.

The casualty lists of these first few days will undoubtedly be large. I deeply feel the anxiety of all families of the men
in our armed forces and the relatives of people in cities which have been bombed. I can only give them my solemn promise that
they will get news just as quickly as possible.

This government will put its trust in the stamina of the American people and will give the facts to the public as soon as
two conditions have been fulfilled: first, that the information has been definitely and officially confirmed; and, second,
that the release of the information at the time it is received will not prove valuable to the enemy, directly or indirectly.

Most earnestly I urge my countrymen to reject all rumors. These ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast
in wartime. They have to be examined and appraised. As an example, I can tell you frankly that until further surveys are made,
I have not sufficient information to state the exact damage which has been done to our naval vessels at Pearl Harbor. Admittedly
the damage is serious. But no one can say how serious until we know how much of this damage can be repaired and how quickly
the necessary repairs can be made.

I cite as another example a statement made on Sunday night that a Japanese carrier had been located and sunk off the Canal
Zone. And when you hear statements that are attributed to what they call "an authoritative source," you can be reasonably
sure that under these war circumstances the "authoritative source" was not any person in authority.

Many rumors and reports which we now hear originate with enemy sources. For instance, today the Japanese are claiming that
as a result of their one action against Hawaii they have gained naval supremacy in the Pacific. This is an old trick of propaganda
which has been used innumerable times by the Nazis. The purposes of such fantastic claims are, of course, to spread fear and
confusion among us and to goad us into revealing military information which our enemies are desperately anxious to obtain.
Our government will not be caught in this obvious trap--and neither will our people.

It must be remembered by each and every one of us that our free and rapid communication must be greatly restricted in wartime.
It is not possible to receive full, speedy, accurate reports from distant areas of combat. This is particularly true where
naval operations are concerned. For in these days of the marvels of radio it is often impossible for the commanders of various
units to report their activities by radio, for the very simple reason that this information would become available to the
enemy, and would disclose their position and their plan of defense or attack.

Of necessity there will be delays in officially confirming or denying reports of operations, but we will not hide facts from
the country if we know the facts and if the enemy will not be aided by their disclosure.

To all newspapers and radio stations--all those who reach the eyes and ears of the American people--I say this: You have a
most grave responsibility to the nation now and for the duration of this war. If you feel that your government is not disclosing
enough of the truth, you have every right to say so. But--in the absence of all the facts, as revealed by official sources--you
have no right to deal out unconfirmed reports in such a way as to make people believe they are gospel truth.

Every citizen, in every walk of life, shares this same responsibility. The lives of our soldiers and sailors--the whole future
of this nation--depend upon the manner in which each and every one of us fulfills his obligation to our country.

Now a word about the recent past--and the future. A year and a half has elapsed since the fall of France, when the whole world
first realized the mechanized might which the Axis nations had been building for so many years. America has used that year
and a half to great advantage. Knowing that the attack might reach us in all too short a time, we immediately began greatly
to increase our industrial strength and our capacity to meet the demands of modern warfare.

Precious months were gained by sending vast quantities of our war materials to the nations of the world still able to resist
Axis aggression. Our policy rested on the fundamental truth that the defense of any country resisting Hitler or Japan was
in the long run the defense of our own country. That policy has been justified. It has given us time, invaluable time, to
build our American assembly lines of production. Assembly lines are now in operation. Others are being rushed to completion.
A steady stream of tanks and planes, of guns and ships, of shells and equipment--that is what these eighteen months have given
us.

But it is all only a beginning of what has to be done. We must be set to face a long war against crafty and powerful bandits.
The attack at Pearl Harbor can be repeated at any one of many points in both oceans and along both our coastlines and against
all the rest of the hemisphere.

It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick
by which we measure what we shall need and demand--money, materials, doubled and quadrupled production, ever increasing. The
production must be not only for our own Army and Navy and air forces. It must reinforce the other armies and navies and air
forces fighting the Nazis and the war lords of Japan throughout the Americas and the world.

I have been working today on the subject of production. Your government has decided on two broad policies. The first is to
speed up all existing production by working on a seven-day-week basis in every war industry, including the production of essential
raw materials. The second policy, now being put into form, is to rush additions to the capacity of production by building
more new plants, by adding to old plants, and by using the many smaller plants for war needs.

Over the hard road of the past months we have at times met obstacles and difficulties, divisions and disputes, indifference
and callousness. That is now all past and, I am sure, forgotten. The fact is that the country now has an organization in Washington
built around men and women who are recognized experts in their own fields. I think the country knows that the people who are
actually responsible in each and every one of these many fields are pulling together with a teamwork that has never before
been excelled.

On the road ahead there lies hard work--gruelling work--day and night, every hour and every minute. I was about to add that
ahead there lies sacrifice for all of us. But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not consider it a
sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our nation when the nation is fighting for its existence and its future
life.

It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army or the Navy of the United States. Rather is it a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor to
pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted.
Rather is it a privilege. It is not a sacrifice to do without many things to which we are accustomed if the national defense
calls for doing without.

A review this morning leads me to the conclusion that at present we shall not have to curtail the normal articles of food.
There is enough food for all of us and enough left over to send to those who are fighting on the same side with us. There
will be a clear and definite shortage of metals of many kinds for civilian use for the very good reason that in our increased
program we shall need for war purposes more than half of that portion of the principal metals which during the past year have
gone into articles for civilian use. We shall have to give up many things entirely.

I am sure that the people in every part of the nation are prepared in their individual living to win this war. I am sure they
will cheerfully help to pay a large part of its financial cost while it goes on. I am sure they will cheerfully give up those
material things they are asked to give up. I am sure that they will retain all those great spiritual things without which
we cannot win through.

I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese
treachery be wiped out but the sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.

In my message to the Congress yesterday I said that we "will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger
us again." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great task that is before us by abandoning once and for all
the illusion that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.

In these past few years--and, most violently, in the past few days--we have learned a terrible lesson. It is our obligation
to our dead--it is our sacred obligation to their children and our children--that we must never forget what we have learned.

And what we all have learned is this: There is no such thing as security for any nation--or any individual--in a world ruled
by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in
the dark and strike without warning. We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from severe attack--that
we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map.

We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great
skill. It was a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner
is a dirty business. We don't like it--we didn't want to get in it--but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything
we've got.

I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to administer proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes.
Your government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan
would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would
receive the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area--and that means not only the Far East, not only
all of the islands in the Pacific but also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central, and South America. We also
know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operation in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers
all peoples and nations which are not helping the Axis Powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis Powers.

That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. That is why the American people must realize that it can be matched only
with similar grand strategy. We must realize, for example, that Japanese successes against the United States in the Pacific
are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan
in her operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers or Morocco opens the way to a German
attack against South America. On the other side of the picture, we must learn to know that guerrilla warfare against the Germans
in Serbia helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or
sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United
States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain and Russia. And Germany puts all the other
republics of the Americas into the category of enemies. The people of the hemisphere can be honored by that.

The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined
that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers;
we are builders.

We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation and all that this
nation represents will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if
we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.

We are going to win the war, and we are going to win the peace that follows.

And in the dark hours of this day--and through dark days that may be yet to come--we will know that the vast majority of the
members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For, in representing
our cause, we represent theirs as well--our hope and their hope for liberty under God.

My friends, before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you permit me the
privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own. And I ask that you bow your heads:

Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the executive branch of government join me in beseeching
that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens
everywhere.

Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby,
and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of station, race,
or calling.

May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to differing
political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen.

My fellow citizens:

The world and we have passed the midway point of a century of continuing challenge. We sense with all our faculties that forces
of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history.

This fact defines the meaning of this day. We are summoned by this honored and historic ceremony to witness more than the
act of one citizen swearing his oath of service, in the presence of God. We are called as a people to give testimony in the
sight of the world to our faith that the future shall belong to the free.

Since this century's beginning, a time of tempest has seemed to come upon the continents of the earth. Masses of Asia have
awakened to strike off shackles of the past. Great nations of Europe have fought their bloodiest wars. Thrones have toppled
and their vast empires have disappeared. New nations have been born.

For our own country, it has been a time of recurring trial. We have grown in power and in responsibility. We have passed through
the anxieties of depression and of war to a summit unmatched in man's history. Seeking to secure peace in the world, we have
had to fight through the forests of the Argonne, to the shores of Iwo Jima, and to the cold mountains of Korea.

In the swift rush of great events, we find ourselves groping to know the full sense and meaning of these times in which we
live. In our quest of understanding, we beseech God's guidance. We summon all our knowledge of the past and we scan all signs
of the future. We bring all our wit and all our will to meet the question:

How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light--a day of freedom and of
peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

Great as are the preoccupations absorbing us at home, concerned as we are with matters that deeply affect our livelihood today
and our vision of the future, each of these domestic problems is dwarfed by, and often even created by, this question that
involves all humankind.

This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve good or to inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest
fears of all ages. We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the plains. Oceans and land and sky are avenues
for our colossal commerce. Disease diminishes and life lengthens.

Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth. Labor sweats
to create--and turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its
final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet.

At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It
is our faith in the deathless dignity of man, governed by eternal moral and natural laws.

This faith defines our full view of life. It establishes, beyond debate, those gifts of the Creator that are man's inalienable
rights, and that make all men equal in His sight.

In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues most cherished by free people--love of truth, pride of work, devotion
to country--all are treasures equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. The men who mine coal
and fire furnaces and balance ledgers and turn lathes and pick cotton and heal the sick and plant corn--all serve as proudly,
and as profitably, for America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the legislators who enact laws.

This faith rules our whole way of life. It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve. It asserts
that we have the right to choice of our own work and to the reward of our own toil. It inspires the initiative that makes
our productivity the wonder of the world. And it warns that any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays
the spirit of the free and invites the mockery of the tyrant.

It is because we, all of us, hold to these principles that the political changes accomplished this day do not imply turbulence,
upheaval, or disorder. Rather this change expresses a purpose of strengthening our dedication and devotion to the precepts
of our founding documents, a conscious renewal of faith in our country and in the watchfulness of a Divine Providence.

The enemies of this faith know no god but force, no devotion but its use. They tutor men in treason. They feed upon the hunger
of others. Whatever defies them, they torture, especially the truth.

Here, then, is joined no argument between slightly differing philosophies. This conflict strikes directly at the faith of
our fathers and the lives of our sons. No principle or treasure that we hold, from the spiritual knowledge of our free schools
and churches to the creative magic of free labor and capital, nothing lies safely beyond the reach of this struggle.

Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark.

The faith we hold belongs not to us alone but to the free of all the world. This common bond binds the grower of rice in Burma
and the planter of wheat in Iowa, the shepherd in southern Italy and the mountaineer in the Andes. It confers a common dignity
upon the French soldier who dies in Indo-China, the British soldier killed in Malaya, the American life given in Korea.

We know, beyond this, that we are linked to all free peoples not merely by a noble idea but by a simple need. No free people
can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic solitude. For all our own material might, even we need
markets in the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories. Equally, we need for these same farms and factories
vital materials and products of distant lands. This basic law of interdependence, so manifest in the commerce of peace, applies
with thousand-fold intensity in the event of war.

So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in discord.

To produce this unity, to meet the challenge of our time, destiny has laid upon our country the responsibility of the free
world's leadership.

So it is proper that we assure our friends once again that, in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and
we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully
calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the stimulus of emergencies.

We wish our friends the world over to know this above all: we face the threat--not with dread and confusion--but with confidence
and conviction.

We feel this moral strength because we know that we are not helpless prisoners of history. We are free men. We shall remain
free, never to be proven guilty of the one capital offense against freedom, a lack of stanch faith.

In pleading our just cause before the bar of history and in pressing our labor for world peace, we shall be guided by certain
fixed principles.

These principles are:

(1) Abhorring war as a chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of statesmanship
to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. For, as it must be the
supreme purpose of all free men, so it must be the dedication of their leaders, to save humanity from preying upon itself.

In the light of this principle, we stand ready to engage with any and all others in joint effort to remove the causes of mutual
fear and distrust among nations, so as to make possible drastic reduction of armaments. The sole requisites for undertaking
such effort are that--in their purpose--they be aimed logically and honestly toward secure peace for all; and that--in their
result--they provide methods by which every participating nation will prove good faith in carrying out its pledge.

(2) Realizing that common sense and common decency alike dictate the futility of appeasement, we shall never try to placate an aggressor by the false and wicked bargain of trading honor for security. Americans, indeed
all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.

(3) Knowing that only a United States that is strong and immensely productive can help defend freedom in our world, we view
our Nation's strength and security as a trust upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere. It is the firm duty of each
of our free citizens and of every free citizen everywhere to place the cause of his country before the comfort, the convenience
of himself.

(4) Honoring the identity and the special heritage of each nation in the world, we shall never use our strength to try to
impress upon another people our own cherished political and economic institutions.

(5) Assessing realistically the needs and capacities of proven friends of freedom, we shall strive to help them to achieve
their own security and well-being. Likewise, we shall count upon them to assume, within the limits of their resources, their
full and just burdens in the common defense of freedom.

(6) Recognizing economic health as an indispensable basis of military strength and the free world's peace, we shall strive
to foster everywhere, and to practice ourselves, policies that encourage productivity and profitable trade. For the impoverishment
of any single people in the world means danger to the well-being of all other peoples.

(7) Appreciating that economic need, military security and political wisdom combine to suggest regional groupings of free
peoples, we hope, within the framework of the United Nations, to help strengthen such special bonds the world over. The nature
of these ties must vary with the different problems of different areas.

In the Western Hemisphere, we enthusiastically join with all our neighbors in the work of perfecting a community of fraternal
trust and common purpose.

In Europe, we ask that enlightened and inspired leaders of the Western nations strive with renewed vigor to make the unity
of their peoples a reality. Only as free Europe unitedly marshals its strength can it effectively safeguard, even with our
help, its spiritual and cultural heritage.

(8) Conceiving the defense of freedom, like freedom itself, to be one and indivisible, we hold all continents and peoples
in equal regard and honor. We reject any insinuation that one race or another, one people or another, is in any sense inferior
or expendable.

(9) Respecting the United Nations as the living sign of all people's hope for peace, we shall strive to make it not merely
an eloquent symbol but an effective force. And in our quest for an honorable peace, we shall neither compromise, nor tire,
nor ever cease.

By these rules of conduct, we hope to be known to all peoples.

By their observance, an earth of peace may become not a vision but a fact.

This hope--this supreme aspiration--must rule the way we live.

We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose.

We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values
its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of spiritual strength
that generate and define our material strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means
more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that
makes freedom possible--from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists.

And so each citizen plays an indispensable role. The productivity of our heads, our hands, and our hearts is the source of
all the strength we can command, for both the enrichment of our lives and the winning of the peace.

No person, no home, no community can be beyond the reach of this call. We are summoned to act in wisdom and in conscience,
to work with industry, to teach with persuasion, to preach with conviction, to weigh our every deed with care and with compassion.
For this truth must be clear before us: whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the
heart of America.

The peace we seek, then, is nothing less than the practice and fulfillment of our whole faith among ourselves and in our dealings
with others. This signifies more than the stilling of guns, easing the sorrow of war. More than escape from death, it is a
way of life. More than a haven for the weary, it is a hope for the brave.

This is the hope that beckons us onward in this century of trial. This is the work that awaits us all, to be done with bravery,
with charity, and with prayer to Almighty God.

In August 1990 Iraqi forces invaded neighbouring Kuwait in an attempt to gain control of its oil reserves, prompting U.S.
President George Bush to direct a massive American military buildup in Saudi Arabia to protect against any further Iraqi aggression.
The Bush administration officially dubbed the defense of Saudi Arabia “Operation Desert Shield,” but the size and scope of
the American presence (more than 500,000 American troops had arrived in Saudi Arabia by January 1991) made it clear that a
powerful offensive capability existed for U.S. forces. Throughout the military buildup, American officials negotiated with
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in an effort to persuade him to withdraw from Kuwait. These efforts failed, as did a United
Nations' effort to mediate an Iraqi withdrawal. When the United Nations Security Council deadline of January 15, 1991, passed
without an Iraqi withdrawal, American and allied forces launched a massive six-week aerial bombardment that decimated Iraqi
supplies, troops, and fortifications in Kuwait and southern Iraq. Excerpts of Bush's speech announcing the opening of the
air campaign, known as “Operation Desert Storm,” are presented here.

Just 2 hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak.
Ground forces are not engaged.

This conflict started August 2d when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait--a member of the Arab
League and a member of the United Nations--was crushed; its people, brutalized. Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this
cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined. . . .

As I report to you, air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq. We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein's
nuclear bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities. Much of Saddam's artillery and tanks will be
destroyed. Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam's vast military
arsenal. Initial reports from General Schwarzkopf are that our operations are proceeding according to plan.

Our objectives are clear: Saddam Hussein's forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored
to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free. Iraq will eventually comply with all relevant United Nations resolutions,
and then, when peace is restored, it is our hope that Iraq will live as a peaceful and cooperative member of the family of
nations, thus enhancing the security and stability of the Gulf.

Some may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: The world could wait no longer. Sanctions, though having some
effect, showed no signs of accomplishing their objective. Sanctions were tried for well over 5 months, and we and our allies
concluded that sanctions alone would not force Saddam from Kuwait.

While the world waited, Saddam Hussein systematically raped, pillaged, and plundered a tiny nation, no threat to his own.
He subjected the people of Kuwait to unspeakable atrocities--and among those maimed and murdered, innocent children.

While the world waited, Saddam sought to add to the chemical weapons arsenal he now possesses, an infinitely more dangerous
weapon of mass destruction--a nuclear weapon. And while the world waited, while the world talked peace and withdrawal, Saddam
Hussein dug in and moved massive forces into Kuwait.

While the world waited, while Saddam stalled, more damage was being done to the fragile economies of the Third World, emerging
democracies of Eastern Europe, to the entire world, including to our own economy.

The United States, together with the United Nations, exhausted every means at our disposal to bring this crisis to a peaceful
end. However, Saddam clearly felt that by stalling and threatening and defying the United Nations, he could weaken the forces
arrayed against him.

While the world waited, Saddam Hussein met every overture of peace with open contempt. While the world prayed for peace, Saddam
prepared for war.

I had hoped that when the United States Congress, in historic debate, took its resolute action, Saddam would realize he could
not prevail and would move out of Kuwait in accord with the United Nations resolutions. He did not do that. Instead, he remained
intransigent, certain that time was on his side.

Saddam was warned over and over again to comply with the will of the United Nations: Leave Kuwait, or be driven out. Saddam
has arrogantly rejected all warnings. Instead, he tried to make this a dispute between Iraq and the United States of America.

Well, he failed. Tonight, 28 nations--countries from 5 continents, Europe and Asia, Africa, and the Arab League--have forces
in the Gulf area standing shoulder to shoulder against Saddam Hussein. These countries had hoped the use of force could be
avoided. Regrettably, we now believe that only force will make him leave.

Prior to ordering our forces into battle, I instructed our military commanders to take every necessary step to prevail as
quickly as possible, and with the greatest degree of protection possible for American and allied service men and women. I've
told the American people before that this will not be another Vietnam, and I repeat this here tonight. Our troops will have
the best possible support in the entire world, and they will not be asked to fight with one hand tied behind their back. I'm
hopeful that this fighting will not go on for long and that casualties will be held to an absolute minimum.

This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war.
We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order--a world where the rule
of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful--and we will be--we have a real
chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise
and vision of the U.N.'s founders.

We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety. Our
goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait. It is my hope that somehow the Iraqi people can, even now,
convince their dictator that he must lay down his arms, leave Kuwait, and let Iraq itself rejoin the family of peace-loving
nations.

Thomas Paine wrote many years ago: “These are the times that try men's souls.” Those well-known words are so very true today.
But even as planes of the multinational forces attack Iraq, I prefer to think of peace, not war. I am convinced not only that
we will prevail but that out of the horror of combat will come the recognition that no nation can stand against a world united,
no nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbor.

No President can easily commit our sons and daughters to war. They are the Nation's finest. Ours is an all-volunteer force,
magnificently trained, highly motivated. The troops know why they're there. . . .

And let me say to everyone listening or watching tonight: When the troops we've sent in finish their work, I am determined
to bring them home as soon as possible.

Tonight, as our forces fight, they and their families are in our prayers. May God bless each and every one of them, and the
coalition forces at our side in the Gulf, and may He continue to bless our nation, the United States of America.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, January 16, 1991.

On June 11, 1963, a momentous event occurred at the University of Alabama. Two African American residents of Alabama, who were clearly qualified for studies at the state's highest institution of learning, had been refused
admittance on the grounds of their skin colour. They had appealed this refusal to a federal court, which had demanded that
they be admitted. Governor George Wallace promised to “stand in the schoolhouse door” to keep them out, but at the last moment
he stepped aside as the two young African Americans, protected by federal guardsmen, entered. That night President John F. Kennedy discussed the Alabama situation in a radio and television address to the American people, in the course of which he declared
that the issue of African Americans' position in American life was no longer merely economic and political but also moral.

This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required
on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District
of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been
born Negro.

That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of
Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related
incidents. This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are
created equal and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free, and when Americans
are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students
of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.

It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such
as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street;
and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference
or fear of reprisal.

It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race
or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would
wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.

The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much
chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing
college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh
as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter, and the prospects of earning only
half as much.

This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city in every state of the
Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue
in a time of domestic crisis. Men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This
is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and
new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.

The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are
going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in
a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for
the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who
among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content
with the counsels of patience and delay?

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not
fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression,
and this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home; but are we to say to the world,
and much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class
citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the
cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration
and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets,
in demonstrations, parades, and protests, which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.

We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be
left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress,
in your state and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.

It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore
the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful
and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing
right as well as reality.

Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century
to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in a
series of forthright cases. The executive branch has adopted that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the
employment of federal personnel, the use of federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing.

But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The
old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts
of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens as there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only
remedy is in the street.

I am therefore asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are
open to the public--hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. This seems to me to be an elementary
right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do.

I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and I
have been encouraged by their response; and in the last two weeks over seventy-five cities have seen progress made in desegregating
these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason nationwide legislation is needed if we
are to move this problem from the streets to the courts.

I am also asking Congress to authorize the federal government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation
in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes
without violence. Today a Negro is attending a state-supported institution in every one of our fifty states, but the pace
is very slow.

Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's decision nine years ago will
enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education
denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job. The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot
be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment.

Other features will be also requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot
solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country.

In this respect, I want to pay tribute to those citizens North and South who have been working in their communities to make
life better for all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency. Like our soldiers
and sailors in all parts of the world, they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their
honor and their courage.

My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all--in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are
Negroes unemployed two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate in education, moving into the large cities, unable
to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a
restaurant or lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right
to attend a state university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely
Presidents or congressmen or governors, but every citizen of the United States.

This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop
their talents. We cannot say to ten percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children can't have
the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into
the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that. Therefore, I am asking for
your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves;
to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents.

As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have
the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation to make something of themselves. We have a
right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the
law will be fair; that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.

This is what we are talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting
it I ask the support of all of our citizens.

Behind Jefferson's insistence on the freedom of religious expression lay his more general belief that all censorship was unwise.
False theories, he felt, would wither and die if exposed to the light of day, and the only real effect of censorship was to
make attractive books that otherwise would be ignored or soon forgotten. The following letter of April 19, 1814, was written
by Jefferson to his bookseller, N.G. Dufief, in Philadelphia, where the civil authorities had prevented the sale of a book
on the origin of the world.

Your favor of the 6th instant is just received, and I shall with equal willingness and truth state the degree of agency you
had respecting the copy of M. de Becourt's book, which came to my hands. That gentleman informed me by letter that he was
about to publish a volume in French, Sur la Création du monde, un systeme d'organisation primitive, which its title promised to be either a geological or astronomical work. I subscribed, and, when published, he sent me a
copy; and as you were my correspondent in the book line in Philadelphia, I took the liberty of desiring him to call on you
for the price, which, he afterwards informed me, you were so kind as to pay him for me, being, I believe, $2.00. But the sole
copy which came to me was from himself directly and, as far as I know, was never seen by you.

I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry,
and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before
the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? And are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books
may be sold and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the
measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves,
set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question
whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

If M. de Becourt's book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let
us freely hear both sides if we choose. I know little of its contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage
and over the table of contents. From this, the Newtonian philosophy seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which
might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants, Newton certainly not needing the auxiliary arm of the government,
and still less the holy Author of our religion, as to what in it concerns Him. I thought the work would be very innocent and
one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will
be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy in vindication of his right to buy and
to read what he pleases. I have just been reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its fundamental bases is expressed
in these words: "The Roman Catholic religion, the only true one is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish nation. The government
protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatever." Now I wish this presented to those who
question what you may sell or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words "Roman Catholic" and to insert the denomination
of their own religion.

This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like
the Spanish religion, under the "protection of wise and just laws." It would show to what they wish to reduce the liberty
for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of
theory only and not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thralldom but practical freedom of Europe.
But it is impossible that the laws of Pennsylvania, which set us the first example of the wholesome and happy effects of religious
freedom, can permit the inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their courts. Under them you are surely safe.

At the date of yours of the 6th, you had not received mine of the 3rd instant asking a copy of an edition of Newton's Principia, which I had seen advertised. When the cost of that shall be known, it shall be added to the balance of $4.93 and incorporated
with a larger remittance I have to make to Philadelphia. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect.

Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings,
Official and Private, H.A. Washington, ed., 1853-1854, 9 vols.

In obedience of the mandate of my countrymen I am about to dedicate myself to their service under the sanction of a solemn
oath. Deeply moved by the expression of confidence and personal attachment which has called me to this service, I am sure
my gratitude can make no better return than the pledge I now give before God and these witnesses of unreserved and complete
devotion to the interests and welfare of those who have honored me.

I deem it fitting on this occasion, while indicating the opinion I hold concerning public questions of present importance,
to also briefly refer to the existence of certain conditions and tendencies among our people which seem to menace the integrity
and usefulness of their Government.

While every American citizen must contemplate with the utmost pride and enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our country,
the sufficiency of our institutions to stand against the rudest shocks of violence, the wonderful thrift and enterprise of
our people, and the demonstrated superiority of our free government, it behooves us to constantly watch for every symptom
of insidious infirmity that threatens our national vigor.

The strong man who in the confidence of sturdy health courts the sternest activities of life and rejoices in the hardihood
of constant labor may still have lurking near his vitals the unheeded disease that dooms him to sudden collapse.

It can not be doubted that our stupendous achievements as a people and our country's robust strength have given rise to heedlessness
of those laws governing our national health which we can no more evade than human life can escape the laws of God and nature.

Manifestly nothing is more vital to our supremacy as a nation and to the beneficent purposes of our Government than a sound
and stable currency. Its exposure to degradation should at once arouse to activity the most enlightened statesmanship, and
the danger of depreciation in the purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest incentive to prompt
and conservative precaution.

In dealing with our present embarrassing situation as related to this subject we will be wise if we temper our confidence
and faith in our national strength and resources with the frank concession that even these will not permit us to defy with
impunity the inexorable laws of finance and trade. At the same time, in our efforts to adjust differences of opinion we should
be free from intolerance or passion, and our judgments should be unmoved by alluring phrases and unvexed by selfish interests.

I am confident that such an approach to the subject will result in prudent and effective remedial legislation. In the meantime,
so far as the executive branch of the Government can intervene, none of the powers with which it is invested will be withheld
when their exercise is deemed necessary to maintain our national credit or avert financial disaster.

Closely related to the exaggerated confidence in our country's greatness which tends to a disregard of the rules of national
safety, another danger confronts us not less serious. I refer to the prevalence of a popular disposition to expect from the
operation of the Government especial and direct individual advantages.

The verdict of our voters which condemned the injustice of maintaining protection for protection's sake enjoins upon the people's
servants the duty of exposing and destroying the brood of kindred evils which are the unwholesome progeny of paternalism. This is the bane of republican institutions and the constant peril of our government by the people. It degrades to the purposes
of wily craft the plan of rule our fathers established and bequeathed to us as an object of our love and veneration. It perverts
the patriotic sentiments of our countrymen and tempts them to pitiful calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their
Government's maintenance. It undermines the self-reliance of our people and substitutes in its place dependence upon governmental
favoritism. It stifles the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every ennobling trait of American citizenship.

The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and
cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people.

The acceptance of this principle leads to a refusal of bounties and subsidies, which burden the labor and thrift of a portion
of our citizens to aid ill-advised or languishing enterprises in which they have no concern. It leads also to a challenge
of wild and reckless pension expenditure, which overleaps the bounds of grateful recognition of patriotic service and prostitutes
to vicious uses the people's prompt and generous impulse to aid those disabled in their country's defense.

Every thoughtful American must realize the importance of checking at its beginning any tendency in public or private station
to regard frugality and economy as virtues which we may safely outgrow. The toleration of this idea results in the waste of
the people's money by their chosen servants and encourages prodigality and extravagance in the home life of our countrymen.

Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen, and the contempt of our people for
economy and frugality in their personal affairs deplorably saps the strength and sturdiness of our national character.

It is a plain dictate of honesty and good government that public expenditures should be limited by public necessity, and that
this should be measured by the rules of strict economy; and it is equally clear that frugality among the people is the best
guaranty of a contented and strong support of free institutions.

One mode of the misappropriation of public funds is avoided when appointments to office, instead of being the rewards of partisan
activity, are awarded to those whose efficiency promises a fair return of work for the compensation paid to them. To secure
the fitness and competency of appointees to office and remove from political action the demoralizing madness for spoils, civil-service
reform has found a place in our public policy and laws. The benefits already gained through this instrumentality and the further
usefulness it promises entitle it to the hearty support and encouragement of all who desire to see our public service well
performed or who hope for the elevation of political sentiment and the purification of political methods.

The existence of immense aggregations of kindred enterprises and combinations of business interests formed for the purpose
of limiting production and fixing prices is inconsistent with the fair field which ought to be open to every independent activity.
Legitimate strife in business should not be superseded by an enforced concession to the demands of combinations that have
the power to destroy, nor should the people to be served lose the benefit of cheapness which usually results from wholesome
competition. These aggregations and combinations frequently constitute conspiracies against the interests of the people, and
in all their phases they are unnatural and opposed to our American sense of fairness. To the extent that they can be reached
and restrained by Federal power the General Government should relieve our citizens from their interference and exactions.

Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees
to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land. The enjoyment of this right follows
the badge of citizenship wherever found, and, unimpaired by race or color, it appeals for recognition to American manliness
and fairness.

Our relations with the Indians located within our border impose upon us responsibilities we can not escape. Humanity and consistency
require us to treat them with forbearance and in our dealings with them to honestly and considerately regard their rights
and interests. Every effort should be made to lead them, through the paths of civilization and education, to self-supporting
and independent citizenship. In the meantime, as the nation's wards, they should be promptly defended against the cupidity
of designing men and shielded from every influence or temptation that retards their advancement.

The people of the United States have decreed that on this day the control of their Government in its legislative and executive
branches shall be given to a political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment of tariff reform. They
have thus determined in favor of a more just and equitable system of Federal taxation. The agents they have chosen to carry
out their purposes are bound by their promises not less than by the command of their masters to devote themselves unremittingly
to this service.

While there should be no surrender of principle, our task must be undertaken wisely and without heedless vindictiveness. Our
mission is not punishment, but the rectification of wrong. If in lifting burdens from the daily life of our people we reduce
inordinate and unequal advantages too long enjoyed, this is but a necessary incident of our return to right and justice. If
we exact from unwilling minds acquiescence in the theory of an honest distribution of the fund of the governmental beneficence
treasured up for all, we but insist upon a principle which underlies our free institutions. When we tear aside the delusions
and misconceptions which have blinded our countrymen to their condition under vicious tariff laws, we but show them how far
they have been led away from the paths of contentment and prosperity. When we proclaim that the necessity for revenue to support
the Government furnishes the only justification for taxing the people, we announce a truth so plain that its denial would
seem to indicate the extent to which judgment may be influenced by familiarity with perversions of the taxing power. And when
we seek to reinstate the self-confidence and business enterprise of our citizens by discrediting an abject dependence upon
governmental favor, we strive to stimulate those elements of American character which support the hope of American achievement.

Anxiety for the redemption of the pledges which my party has made and solicitude for the complete justification of the trust
the people have reposed in us constrain me to remind those with whom I am to cooperate that we can succeed in doing the work
which has been especially set before us only by the most sincere, harmonious, and disinterested effort. Even if insuperable
obstacles and opposition prevent the consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused; and if failure can be traced to
our fault or neglect we may be sure the people will hold us to a swift and exacting accountability.

The oath I now take to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States not only impressively defines the
great responsibility I assume, but suggests obedience to constitutional commands as the rule by which my official conduct
must be guided. I shall to the best of my ability and within my sphere of duty preserve the Constitution by loyally protecting
every grant of Federal power it contains, by defending all its restraints when attacked by impatience and restlessness, and
by enforcing its limitations and reservations in favor of the States and the people.

Fully impressed with the gravity of the duties that confront me and mindful of my weakness, I should be appalled if it were
my lot to bear unaided the responsibilities which await me. I am, however, saved from discouragement when I remember that
I shall have the support and the counsel and cooperation of wise and patriotic men who will stand at my side in Cabinet places
or will represent the people in their legislative halls.

I find also much comfort in remembering that my countrymen are just and generous and in the assurance that they will not condemn
those who by sincere devotion to their service deserve their forbearance and approval.

Above all, I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed
the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

During the summer of 1800, the Republicans gathered their forces in an attempt to obtain the presidency for Thomas Jefferson.
Though Jefferson did not campaign in the modern sense of the term, he did write many letters to friends and to newspaper editors,
defending himself against the attacks of the Federalists. When Gideon Granger of Connecticut wrote to him that there would
be some support for the Republican cause in that Federalist stronghold, Jefferson's reply of August 13, 1800, restated the
main points of his political creed. In the portion of the letter reprinted here, he stressed his belief in strong state governments
and in a weak federal government. In his understanding of the Constitution, "a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants"
summed up the only way to avoid the distortion the document had undergone at the hands of Washington and Adams.

I received with great pleasure your favor of June 4, and am much comforted by the appearance of a change of opinion in your
state; for though we may obtain, and I believe shall obtain, a majority in the legislature of the United States, attached
to the preservation of the federal Constitution, according to its obvious principles and those on which it was known to be
received; attached equally to the preservation to the states of those rights unquestionably remaining with them; friends to
the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, and to economical government; opposed to standing armies, paper
systems, war, and all connection, other than commerce, with any foreign nation; in short, a majority firm in all those principles
which we have espoused, and the Federalists have opposed uniformly, still, should the whole body of New England continue in
opposition to these principles of government, either knowingly or through delusion, our government will be a very uneasy one.
It can never be harmonious and solid while so respectable a portion of its citizens support principles which go directly to
a change of the federal Constitution, to sink the state governments, consolidate them into one, and to monarchise that.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants, at such a distance, and
from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all
the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible
to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. And I do verily believe that if the
principle were to prevail, of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government
at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the
most corrupt government on the earth. You have seen the practices by which the public servants have been able to cover their
conduct, or, where that could not be done, delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. What
an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office building, and office hunting would be produced by
an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government!

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within
themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns
only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will
manage the better the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very
simple organization, and a very unexpensive one--a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants. But, I repeat that
this simple and economical mode of government can never be secured if the New England States continue to support the contrary
system. I rejoice, therefore, in every appearance of their returning to those principles which I had always imagined to be
almost innate in them.

In this state, a few persons were deluded by the X. Y. Z. duperies. You saw the effect of it in our last congressional representatives,
chosen under their influence. This experiment on their credulity is now seen into, and our next representation will be as
republican as it has heretofore been. On the whole, we hope that, by a part of the Union having held on to the principles
of the Constitution, time has been given to the states to recover from the temporary frenzy into which they had been decoyed,
to rally round the Constitution, and to rescue it from the destruction with which it had been threatened even at their own
hands.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen Middle Eastern terrorists hijacked four American passenger jets and used the planes as guided missiles to attack symbolic targets on the Eastern Seaboard
of the United States. Two planes slammed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City, causing both towers to collapse.
A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C., and a fourth went down in the Pennsylvania countryside when
passengers resisted the hijackers. The devastating series of attacks killed some 3,000 Americans, more than had died in the
Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 60 years previously. In the hours and days following September 11, American and foreign
intelligence services identified Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire living in exile in Afghanistan, as the mastermind behind
the attacks. On September 20, President George W. Bush spoke before a Joint Session of Congress and outlined America's response
to the events of September 11. In the speech, televised live around the nation and the world and excerpted here, Bush announced
that “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda (the terrorist network associated with bin Laden), but it does not end there.
It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Less than three weeks
after Bush's speech, American forces launched a military campaign in Afghanistan to capture bin Laden and overthrow Afghanistan's
Taliban government, which had long aided and abetted bin Laden and other terrorists. Although bin Laden's whereabouts and
fate were unknown at the end of 2001, the American campaign in Afghanistan succeeded in toppling the Taliban from power and
inflicting major damage on bin Laden's terrorist network. With American support, a new pro-Western government was installed
in Afghanistan in early 2002.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans: In the normal course of events, Presidents
come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered
by the American people.

We have seen it in the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground--passengers like an exceptional
man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me to welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer, here tonight. We have seen the state
of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles,
the giving of blood, the saying of prayers--in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving
people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen
for itself the state of our Union--and it is strong. Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom.
Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies,
justice will be done.

I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy
to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol, singing “God Bless America.” And you did more
than sing; you acted, by delivering $40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military. Speaker Hastert,
Minority Leader Gephardt, Majority Leader Daschle and Senator Lott, I thank you for your friendship, for your leadership and
for your service to our country.

And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support. America will never forget the sounds
of our National Anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris, and at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. We will not
forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque
in Cairo. We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America. Nor will we
forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250
citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens. America has no
truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause--so honored the British Prime Minister
has crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America. Thank you for coming, friend.

On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars--but for
the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties
of war--but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks--but never before
on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day--and night fell on a different world, a world where
freedom itself is under attack.

Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points
to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for
bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. Al Qaeda is to terror what the
mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world--and imposing its radical beliefs on people
everywhere. The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast
majority of Muslim clerics--a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists' directive commands
them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women
and children.

This group and its leader--a person named Osama bin Laden--are linked to many other organizations in different countries,
including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more
than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan,
where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the
world to plot evil and destruction. The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban
regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda's vision for the world.

Afghanistan's people have been brutalized--many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You
can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan
if his beard is not long enough. The United States respects the people of Afghanistan--after all, we are currently its largest
source of humanitarian aid--but we condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening
people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime
is committing murder.

And tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities
all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly
imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every
terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate
authorities. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the
terrorists, or they will share in their fate.

I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many
millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful,
and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith,
trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends.
Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,
but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber--a democratically elected government.
Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms--our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote
and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of
vast regions of Asia and Africa. These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With
every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against
us, because we stand in their way.

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies
of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions--by abandoning every value except the will to
power--they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to
where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command--every means of diplomacy,
every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of
war--to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network. . . . Our response involves far more than instant retaliation
and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.
It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of
funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue
nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you
are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism
will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Our nation has been put on notice: We are not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect
Americans. Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities
affecting homeland security. These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight I announce the creation of
a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me--the Office of Homeland Security. And tonight I also announce a distinguished
American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot,
a trusted friend--Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge. He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard
our country against terrorism, and respond to any attacks that may come.

These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate
it, and destroy it where it grows. Many will be involved in this effort, from FBI agents to intelligence operatives to the
reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers. And tonight, a few miles from
the damaged Pentagon, I have a message for our military: Be ready. I've called the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason.
The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.

This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight.
This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. We ask
every nation to join us. We will ask, and we will need, the help of police forces, intelligence services, and banking systems
around the world. The United States is grateful that many nations and many international organizations have already responded--with
sympathy and with support. Nations from Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe, to the Islamic world. Perhaps the NATO
Charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all. . . .

Americans are asking: What is expected of us? I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have
fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.

I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles,
and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because
of their ethnic background or religious faith. . . .

We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home. We will come
together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act, and find them before
they strike. We will come together to take active steps that strengthen America's economy, and put our people back to work.
Tonight we welcome two leaders who embody the extraordinary spirit of all New Yorkers: Governor George Pataki, and Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani. As a symbol of America's resolve, my administration will work with Congress, and these two leaders, to show the
world that we will rebuild New York City.

After all that has just passed--all the lives taken, and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them--it is natural
to wonder if America's future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers
to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined
and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.

Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our
moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom--the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of
every time--now depends on us. Our nation--this generation--will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future.
We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not
fail.

It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines,
and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened
that day, and to whom it happened. We'll remember the moment the news came--where we were and what we were doing. Some will
remember an image of a fire, or a story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever.

And I will carry this: It is the police shield of a man named George Howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to
save others. It was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a proud memorial to her son. This is my reminder of lives that ended,
and a task that does not end.

I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent
in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people. The course of this conflict is not known, yet its
outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between
them.

Fellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice--assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories
to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.

Source: “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” September 20, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov

I appear before you this day to take the solemn oath "that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United
States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

In entering upon this great office I must humbly invoke the God of our fathers for wisdom and firmness to execute its high
and responsible duties in such a manner as to restore harmony and ancient friendship among the people of the several States
and to preserve our free institutions throughout many generations. Convinced that I owe my election to the inherent love for
the Constitution and the Union which still animates the hearts of the American people, let me earnestly ask their powerful
support in sustaining all just measures calculated to perpetuate these, the richest political blessings which Heaven has ever
bestowed upon any nation. Having determined not to become a candidate for reelection, I shall have no motive to influence
my conduct in administering the Government except the desire ably and faithfully to serve my country and to live in grateful
memory of my countrymen.

We have recently passed through a Presidential contest in which the passions of our fellow-citizens were excited to the highest
degree by questions of deep and vital importance; but when the people proclaimed their will the tempest at once subsided and
all was calm.

The voice of the majority, speaking in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, was heard, and instant submission followed.
Our own country could alone have exhibited so grand and striking a spectacle of the capacity of man for self-government.

What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule, that the will of the majority shall govern,
to the settlement of the question of domestic slavery in the Territories. Congress is neither "to legislate slavery into any Territory or State nor to exclude it therefrom, but
to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only
to the Constitution of the United States."

As a natural consequence, Congress has also prescribed that when the Territory of Kansas shall be admitted as a State it "shall
be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."

A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a Territory shall decide this question
for themselves.

This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs
to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally
settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be, though it has
ever been my individual opinion that under the Nebraska-Kansas act the appropriate period will be when the number of actual
residents in the Territory shall justify the formation of a constitution with a view to its admission as a State into the
Union. But be this as it may, it is the imperative and indispensable duty of the Government of the United States to secure
to every resident inhabitant the free and independent expression of his opinion by his vote. This sacred right of each individual
must be preserved. That being accomplished, nothing can be fairer than to leave the people of a Territory free from all foreign
interference to decide their own destiny for themselves, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.

The whole Territorial question being thus settled upon the principle of popular sovereignty-a principle as ancient as free
government itself-everything of a practical nature has been decided. No other question remains for adjustment, because all
agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective
States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end,
and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily
become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others
of more pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission
for more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any human being it has been the prolific
source of great evils to the master, to the slave, and to the whole country. It has alienated and estranged the people of
the sister States from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet
entirely ceased. Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of
the people. Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind
have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far graver importance than any
mere political question, because should the agitation continue it may eventually endanger the personal safety of a large portion
of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that event no form of government, however admirable in itself and however
productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the family altar. Let every
Union-loving man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation, which since the recent legislation of Congress
is without any legitimate object.

It is an evil omen of the times that men have undertaken to calculate the mere material value of the Union. Reasoned estimates
have been presented of the pecuniary profits and local advantages which would result to different States and sections from
its dissolution and of the comparative injuries which such an event would inflict on other States and sections. Even descending
to this low and narrow view of the mighty question, all such calculations are at fault. The bare reference to a single consideration
will be conclusive on this point. We at present enjoy a free trade throughout our extensive and expanding country such as
the world has never witnessed. This trade is conducted on railroads and canals, on noble rivers and arms of the sea, which
bind together the North and the South, the East and the West, of our Confederacy. Annihilate this trade, arrest its free progress
by the geographical lines of jealous and hostile States, and you destroy the prosperity and onward march of the whole and
every part and involve all in one common ruin. But such considerations, important as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance
when we reflect on the terrific evils which would result from disunion to every portion of the Confederacy-to the North, not
more than to the South, to the East not more than to the West. These I shall not attempt to portray, because I feel an humble
confidence that the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to frame the most perfect form of government and
union ever devised by man will not suffer it to perish until it shall have been peacefully instrumental by its example in
the extension of civil and religious liberty throughout the world.

Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union is the duty of preserving the Government free from
the taint or even the suspicion of corruption. Public virtue is the vital spirit of republics, and history proves that when this has decayed and the love of money has
usurped its place, although the forms of free government may remain for a season, the substance has departed forever.

Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history. No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large
a surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure
and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is exerted in contriving and promoting expedients to obtain
public money. The purity of official agents, whether rightfully or wrongfully, is suspected, and the character of the government
suffers in the estimation of the people. This is in itself a very great evil.

The natural mode of relief from this embarrassment is to appropriate the surplus in the Treasury to great national objects
for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among these I might mention the extinguishment of the public debt,
a reasonable increase of the Navy, which is at present inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, now greater
than that of any other nation, as well as to the defense of our extended seacoast.

It is beyond all question the true principle that no more revenue ought to be collected from the people than the amount necessary
to defray the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient administration of the Government. To reach this point it was necessary
to resort to a modification of the tariff, and this has, I trust, been accomplished in such a manner as to do as little injury
as may have been practicable to our domestic manufactures, especially those necessary for the defense of the country. Any
discrimination against a particular branch for the purpose of benefiting favored corporations, individuals, or interests would
have been unjust to the rest of the community and inconsistent with that spirit of fairness and equality which ought to govern
in the adjustment of a revenue tariff.

But the squandering of the public money sinks into comparative insignificance as a temptation to corruption when compared
with the squandering of the public lands.

No nation in the tide of time has ever been blessed with so rich and noble an inheritance as we enjoy in the public lands.
In administering this important trust, whilst it may be wise to grant portions of them for the improvement of the remainder,
yet we should never forget that it is our cardinal policy to reserve these lands, as much as may be, for actual settlers,
and this at moderate prices. We shall thus not only best promote the prosperity of the new States and Territories, by furnishing
them a hardy and independent race of honest and industrious citizens, but shall secure homes for our children and our children's
children, as well as for those exiles from foreign shores who may seek in this country to improve their condition and to enjoy
the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Such emigrants have done much to promote the growth and prosperity of the country.
They have proved faithful both in peace and in war. After becoming citizens they are entitled, under the Constitution and
laws, to be placed on a perfect equality with native-born citizens, and in this character they should ever be kindly recognized.

The Federal Constitution is a grant from the States to Congress of certain specific powers, and the question whether this
grant should be liberally or strictly construed has more or less divided political parties from the beginning. Without entering
into the argument, I desire to state at the commencement of my Administration that long experience and observation have convinced
me that a strict construction of the powers of the Government is the only true, as well as the only safe, theory of the Constitution.
Whenever in our past history doubtful powers have been exercised by Congress, these have never failed to produce injurious
and unhappy consequences. Many such instances might be adduced if this were the proper occasion. Neither is it necessary for
the public service to strain the language of the Constitution, because all the great and useful powers required for a successful
administration of the Government, both in peace and in war, have been granted, either in express terms or by the plainest
implication.

Whilst deeply convinced of these truths, I yet consider it clear that under the war-making power Congress may appropriate
money toward the construction of a military road when this is absolutely necessary for the defense of any State or Territory
of the Union against foreign invasion. Under the Constitution Congress has power "to declare war," "to raise and support armies,"
"to provide and maintain a navy," and to call forth the militia to "repel invasions." Thus endowed, in an ample manner, with
the war-making power, the corresponding duty is required that "the United States shall protect each of them [the States] against
invasion." Now, how is it possible to afford this protection to California and our Pacific possessions except by means of
a military road through the Territories of the United States, over which men and munitions of war may be speedily transported
from the Atlantic States to meet and to repel the invader? In the event of a war with a naval power much stronger than our
own we should then have no other available access to the Pacific Coast, because such a power would instantly close the route
across the isthmus of Central America. It is impossible to conceive that whilst the Constitution has expressly required Congress
to defend all the States it should yet deny to them, by any fair construction, the only possible means by which one of these
States can be defended. Besides, the Government, ever since its origin, has been in the constant practice of constructing
military roads. It might also be wise to consider whether the love for the Union which now animates our fellow-citizens on
the Pacific Coast may not be impaired by our neglect or refusal to provide for them, in their remote and isolated condition,
the only means by which the power of the States on this side of the Rocky Mountains can reach them in sufficient time to "protect"
them "against invasion." I forbear for the present from expressing an opinion as to the wisest and most economical mode in
which the Government can lend its aid in accomplishing this great and necessary work. I believe that many of the difficulties
in the way, which now appear formidable, will in a great degree vanish as soon as the nearest and best route shall have been
satisfactorily ascertained.

It may be proper that on this occasion I should make some brief remarks in regard to our rights and duties as a member of
the great family of nations. In our intercourse with them there are some plain principles, approved by our own experience,
from which we should never depart. We ought to cultivate peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations, and this not merely
as the best means of promoting our own material interests, but in a spirit of Christian benevolence toward our fellow-men,
wherever their lot may be cast. Our diplomacy should be direct and frank, neither seeking to obtain more nor accepting less
than is our due. We ought to cherish a sacred regard for the independence of all nations, and never attempt to interfere in
the domestic concerns of any unless this shall be imperatively required by the great law of self-preservation. To avoid entangling
alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom's no one will attempt to dispute.
In short, we ought to do justice in a kindly spirit to all nations and require justice from them in return.

It is our glory that whilst other nations have extended their dominions by the sword we have never acquired any territory
except by fair purchase or, as in the case of Texas, by the voluntary determination of a brave, kindred, and independent people
to blend their destinies with our own. Even our acquisitions from Mexico form no exception. Unwilling to take advantage of
the fortune of war against a sister republic, we purchased these possessions under the treaty of peace for a sum which was
considered at the time a fair equivalent. Our past history forbids that we shall in the future acquire territory unless this
be sanctioned by the laws of justice and honor. Acting on this principle, no nation will have a right to interfere or to complain
if in the progress of events we shall still further extend our possessions. Hitherto in all our acquisitions the people, under
the protection of the American flag, have enjoyed civil and religious liberty, as well as equal and just laws, and have been
contented, prosperous, and happy. Their trade with the rest of the world has rapidly increased, and thus every commercial
nation has shared largely in their successful progress.

I shall now proceed to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution, whilst humbly invoking the blessing of Divine Providence
on this great people.

President Taft came to believe during the course of his administration that a number of reforms were needed to make the executive
and legislative branches of the government more responsive to one another. In a message to Congress in 1912, he suggested
a plan to allow a member of the Cabinet to be questioned by Congress when legislation affecting his department was being considered.
Taft's suggestions were eventually implemented. The opening portion of his message to Congress on December 19, 1912, appears
below.

This is the third of a series of messages in which I have brought to the attention of the Congress the important transactions
of the government in each of its departments during the last year and have discussed needed reforms.

I recommended the adoption of legislation which shall make it the duty of heads of departments -- the members of the President's
Cabinet -- at convenient times to attend the session of the House and the Senate, which shall provide seats for them in each
house, and give them the opportunity to take part in all discussions and to answer questions of which they have had due notice.

The rigid holding apart of the executive and the legislative branches of this government has not worked for the great advantage
of either. There has been much lost motion in the machinery due to the lack of cooperation and interchange of views face to
face between the representatives of the executive and the members of the two legislative branches of the government. It was
never intended that they should be separated in the sense of not being in constant effective touch and relationship to each
other. The legislative and the executive each performs its own appropriate function, but these functions must be coordinated.

Time and time again debates have arisen in each house upon issues which the information of a particular department head would
have enabled him, if present, to end at once by a simple explanation or statement. Time and time again a forceful and earnest
presentation of facts and arguments by the representative of the executive, whose duty it is to enforce the law, would have
brought about a useful reform by amendment, which in the absence of such a statement has failed of passage. I do not think
I am mistaken in saying that the presence of the members of the Cabinet on the floor of each house would greatly contribute
to the enactment of beneficial legislation. Nor would this in any degree deprive either the legislative or the executive of
the independence which separation of the two branches has been intended to promote. It would only facilitate their cooperation
in the public interest.

On the other hand, I am sure that the necessity and duty imposed upon department heads of appearing in each house and in answer
to searching questions, of rendering upon their feet an account of what they have done or what has been done by the administration,
will spur each member of the Cabinet to closer attention to the details of his department, to greater familiarity with its
needs, and to greater care to avoid the just criticism which the answers brought out in questions put and discussions arising
between the members of either house and the members of the Cabinet may properly evoke.

Objection is made that the members of the administration having no vote could exercise no power on the floor of the House
and could not assume that attitude of authority and control which the English parliamentary government have and which enables
them to meet the responsibilities the English system thrusts upon them. I agree that in certain respects it would be more
satisfactory if members of the Cabinet could at the same time be members of both houses, with voting power, but this is impossible
under our system; and while a lack of this feature may detract from the influence of the department chiefs, it will not prevent
the good results which I have described above, both in the matter of legislation and in the matter of administration. The
enactment of such a law would be quite within the power of Congress without constitutional amendment, and it has such possibilities
of usefulness that we might well make the experiment; and if we are disappointed the misstep can be easily retraced by a repeal
of the enabling legislation.

This is not a new proposition. In the House of Representatives, in the Thirty-eighth Congress, the proposition was referred
to a select committee of seven members. The committee made an extensive report and urged the adoption of the reform. The report
showed that our history had not been without illustration of the necessity and the examples of the practice by pointing out
that in early days secretaries were repeatedly called to the presence of either house for consultation, advice, and information.

Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, reverend
clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom-symbolizing an end, as well
as a beginning-signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our
forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all
forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe-the
belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to
friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war,
disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage-and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing
of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around
the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge-and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there
is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do-for we dare not meet a powerful
challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not
have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our
view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom-and to remember that, in the past, those
who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best
efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required-not because the Communists may be doing it, not because
we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few
who are rich.

To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge-to convert our good words into good deeds-in a new
alliance for progress-to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution
of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression
or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of
its own house.

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war
have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support-to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for
invective-to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak-and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin
anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental
self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that
they will never be employed.

But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course-both sides overburdened by the
cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain
balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.

So let us begin anew-remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to
proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms-and bring
the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the
deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah-to "undo the heavy burdens ... and to let the
oppressed go free."

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not
a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this
Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country
was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young
Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again-not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled
we are-but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"-a
struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful
life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum
danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility-I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with
any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our
country and all who serve it-and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice
which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth
to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

No one can contemplate current conditions without finding much that is satisfying and still more that is encouraging. Our
own country is leading the world in the general readjustment to the results of the great conflict. Many of its burdens will
bear heavily upon us for years, and the secondary and indirect effects we must expect to experience for some time. But we
are beginning to comprehend more definitely what course should be pursued, what remedies ought to be applied, what actions
should be taken for our deliverance, and are clearly manifesting a determined will faithfully and conscientiously to adopt
these methods of relief. Already we have sufficiently rearranged our domestic affairs so that confidence has returned, business
has revived, and we appear to be entering an era of prosperity which is gradually reaching into every part of the Nation.
Realizing that we can not live unto ourselves alone, we have contributed of our resources and our counsel to the relief of
the suffering and the settlement of the disputes among the European nations. Because of what America is and what America has
done, a firmer courage, a higher hope, inspires the heart of all humanity.

These results have not occurred by mere chance. They have been secured by a constant and enlightened effort marked by many
sacrifices and extending over many generations. We can not continue these brilliant successes in the future, unless we continue
to learn from the past. It is necessary to keep the former experiences of our country both at home and abroad continually
before us, if we are to have any science of government. If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge
of the old foundations. We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials
of human relationship do not change. We must frequently take our bearings from these fixed stars of our political firmament
if we expect to hold a true course. If we examine carefully what we have done, we can determine the more accurately what we
can do.

We stand at the opening of the one hundred and fiftieth year since our national consciousness first asserted itself by unmistakable
action with an array of force. The old sentiment of detached and dependent colonies disappeared in the new sentiment of a
united and independent Nation. Men began to discard the narrow confines of a local charter for the broader opportunities of
a national constitution. Under the eternal urge of freedom we became an independent Nation. A little less than 50 years later
that freedom and independence were reasserted in the face of all the world, and guarded, supported, and secured by the Monroe
Doctrine. The narrow fringe of States along the Atlantic seaboard advanced its frontiers across the hills and plains of an
intervening continent until it passed down the golden slope to the Pacific. We made freedom a birthright. We extended our
domain over distant islands in order to safeguard our own interests and accepted the consequent obligation to bestow justice
and liberty upon less favored peoples. In the defense of our own ideals and in the general cause of liberty we entered the
Great War. When victory had been fully secured, we withdrew to our own shores unrecompensed save in the consciousness of duty
done.

Throughout all these experiences we have enlarged our freedom, we have strengthened our independence. We have been, and propose
to be, more and more American. We believe that we can best serve our own country and most successfully discharge our obligations
to humanity by continuing to be openly and candidly, intensely and scrupulously, American. If we have any heritage, it has
been that. If we have any destiny, we have found it in that direction.

But if we wish to continue to be distinctively American, we must continue to make that term comprehensive enough to embrace
the legitimate desires of a civilized and enlightened people determined in all their relations to pursue a conscientious and
religious life. We can not permit ourselves to be narrowed and dwarfed by slogans and phrases. It is not the adjective, but
the substantive, which is of real importance. It is not the name of the action, but the result of the action, which is the
chief concern. It will be well not to be too much disturbed by the thought of either isolation or entanglement of pacifists
and militarists. The physical configuration of the earth has separated us from all of the Old World, but the common brotherhood
of man, the highest law of all our being, has united us by inseparable bonds with all humanity. Our country represents nothing
but peaceful intentions toward all the earth, but it ought not to fail to maintain such a military force as comports with
the dignity and security of a great people. It ought to be a balanced force, intensely modern, capable of defense by sea and
land, beneath the surface and in the air. But it should be so conducted that all the world may see in it, not a menace, but
an instrument of security and peace.

This Nation believes thoroughly in an honorable peace under which the rights of its citizens are to be everywhere protected.
It has never found that the necessary enjoyment of such a peace could be maintained only by a great and threatening array
of arms. In common with other nations, it is now more determined than ever to promote peace through friendliness and good
will, through mutual understandings and mutual forbearance. We have never practiced the policy of competitive armaments. We
have recently committed ourselves by covenants with the other great nations to a limitation of our sea power. As one result
of this, our Navy ranks larger, in comparison, than it ever did before. Removing the burden of expense and jealousy, which
must always accrue from a keen rivalry, is one of the most effective methods of diminishing that unreasonable hysteria and
misunderstanding which are the most potent means of fomenting war. This policy represents a new departure in the world. It is a thought, an ideal, which has led to an entirely new line of
action. It will not be easy to maintain. Some never moved from their old positions, some are constantly slipping back to the
old ways of thought and the old action of seizing a musket and relying on force. America has taken the lead in this new direction,
and that lead America must continue to hold. If we expect others to rely on our fairness and justice we must show that we
rely on their fairness and justice.

If we are to judge by past experience, there is much to be hoped for in international relations from frequent conferences and consultations. We have before us the beneficial results of the Washington conference and the
various consultations recently held upon European affairs, some of which were in response to our suggestions and in some of
which we were active participants. Even the failures can not but be accounted useful and an immeasurable advance over threatened
or actual warfare. I am strongly in favor of continuation of this policy, whenever conditions are such that there is even
a promise that practical and favorable results might be secured.

In conformity with the principle that a display of reason rather than a threat of force should be the determining factor in
the intercourse among nations, we have long advocated the peaceful settlement of disputes by methods of arbitration and have
negotiated many treaties to secure that result. The same considerations should lead to our adherence to the Permanent Court
of International Justice. Where great principles are involved, where great movements are under way which promise much for
the welfare of humanity by reason of the very fact that many other nations have given such movements their actual support,
we ought not to withhold our own sanction because of any small and inessential difference, but only upon the ground of the
most important and compelling fundamental reasons. We can not barter away our independence or our sovereignty, but we ought
to engage in no refinements of logic, no sophistries, and no subterfuges, to argue away the undoubted duty of this country
by reason of the might of its numbers, the power of its resources, and its position of leadership in the world, actively and
comprehensively to signify its approval and to bear its full share of the responsibility of a candid and disinterested attempt
at the establishment of a tribunal for the administration of even-handed justice between nation and nation. The weight of
our enormous influence must be cast upon the side of a reign not of force but of law and trial, not by battle but by reason.

We have never any wish to interfere in the political conditions of any other countries. Especially are we determined not to
become implicated in the political controversies of the Old World. With a great deal of hesitation, we have responded to appeals
for help to maintain order, protect life and property, and establish responsible government in some of the small countries
of the Western Hemisphere. Our private citizens have advanced large sums of money to assist in the necessary financing and
relief of the Old World. We have not failed, nor shall we fail to respond, whenever necessary to mitigate human suffering
and assist in the rehabilitation of distressed nations. These, too, are requirements which must be met by reason of our vast
powers and the place we hold in the world.

Some of the best thought of mankind has long been seeking for a formula for permanent peace. Undoubtedly the clarification
of the principles of international law would be helpful, and the efforts of scholars to prepare such a work for adoption by
the various nations should have our sympathy and support. Much may be hoped for from the earnest studies of those who advocate
the outlawing of aggressive war. But all these plans and preparations, these treaties and covenants, will not of themselves
be adequate. One of the greatest dangers to peace lies in the economic pressure to which people find themselves subjected.
One of the most practical things to be done in the world is to seek arrangements under which such pressure may be removed,
so that opportunity may be renewed and hope may be revived. There must be some assurance that effort and endeavor will be
followed by success and prosperity. In the making and financing of such adjustments there is not only an opportunity, but
a real duty, for America to respond with her counsel and her resources. Conditions must be provided under which people can
make a living and work out of their difficulties. But there is another element, more important than all, without which there
can not be the slightest hope of a permanent peace. That element lies in the heart of humanity. Unless the desire for peace
be cherished there, unless this fundamental and only natural source of brotherly love be cultivated to its highest degree,
all artificial efforts will be in vain. Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on
righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and
satisfying life. Parchment will fail, the sword will fail, it is only the spiritual nature of man that can be triumphant.

It seems altogether probable that we can contribute most to these important objects by maintaining our position of political
detachment and independence. We are not identified with any Old World interests. This position should be made more and more
clear in our relations with all foreign countries. We are at peace with all of them. Our program is never to oppress, but
always to assist. But while we do justice to others, we must require that justice be done to us. With us a treaty of peace
means peace, and a treaty of amity means amity. We have made great contributions to the settlement of contentious differences
in both Europe and Asia. But there is a very definite point beyond which we can not go. We can only help those who help themselves.
Mindful of these limitations, the one great duty that stands out requires us to use our enormous powers to trim the balance
of the world.

While we can look with a great deal of pleasure upon what we have done abroad, we must remember that our continued success
in that direction depends upon what we do at home. Since its very outset, it has been found necessary to conduct our Government
by means of political parties. That system would not have survived from generation to generation if it had not been fundamentally sound and provided the
best instrumentalities for the most complete expression of the popular will. It is not necessary to claim that it has always
worked perfectly. It is enough to know that nothing better has been devised. No one would deny that there should be full and
free expression and an opportunity for independence of action within the party. There is no salvation in a narrow and bigoted
partisanship. But if there is to be responsible party government, the party label must be something more than a mere device
for securing office. Unless those who are elected under the same party designation are willing to assume sufficient responsibility
and exhibit sufficient loyalty and coherence, so that they can cooperate with each other in the support of the broad general
principles, of the party platform, the election is merely a mockery, no decision is made at the polls, and there is no representation
of the popular will. Common honesty and good faith with the people who support a party at the polls require that party, when
it enters office, to assume the control of that portion of the Government to which it has been elected. Any other course is
bad faith and a violation of the party pledges.

When the country has bestowed its confidence upon a party by making it a majority in the Congress, it has a right to expect
such unity of action as will make the party majority an effective instrument of government. This Administration has come into
power with a very clear and definite mandate from the people. The expression of the popular will in favor of maintaining our
constitutional guarantees was overwhelming and decisive. There was a manifestation of such faith in the integrity of the courts
that we can consider that issue rejected for some time to come. Likewise, the policy of public ownership of railroads and
certain electric utilities met with unmistakable defeat. The people declared that they wanted their rights to have not a political
but a judicial determination, and their independence and freedom continued and supported by having the ownership and control
of their property, not in the Government, but in their own hands. As they always do when they have a fair chance, the people
demonstrated that they are sound and are determined to have a sound government.

When we turn from what was rejected to inquire what was accepted, the policy that stands out with the greatest clearness is
that of economy in public expenditure with reduction and reform of taxation. The principle involved in this effort is that
of conservation. The resources of this country are almost beyond computation. No mind can comprehend them. But the cost of
our combined governments is likewise almost beyond definition. Not only those who are now making their tax returns, but those
who meet the enhanced cost of existence in their monthly bills, know by hard experience what this great burden is and what
it does. No matter what others may want, these people want a drastic economy. They are opposed to waste. They know that extravagance
lengthens the hours and diminishes the rewards of their labor. I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money,
but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government.
Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently
save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

If extravagance were not reflected in taxation, and through taxation both directly and indirectly injuriously affecting the
people, it would not be of so much consequence. The wisest and soundest method of solving our tax problem is through economy.
Fortunately, of all the great nations this country is best in a position to adopt that simple remedy. We do not any longer
need wartime revenues. The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt
contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this republic the rewards of industry belong
to those who earn them. The only constitutional tax is the tax which ministers to public necessity. The property of the country
belongs to the people of the country. Their title is absolute. They do not support any privileged class; they do not need
to maintain great military forces; they ought not to be burdened with a great array of public employees. They are not required
to make any contribution to Government expenditures except that which they voluntarily assess upon themselves through the
action of their own representatives. Whenever taxes become burdensome a remedy can be applied by the people; but if they do
not act for themselves, no one can be very successful in acting for them.

The time is arriving when we can have further tax reduction, when, unless we wish to hamper the people in their right to earn
a living, we must have tax reform. The method of raising revenue ought not to impede the transaction of business; it ought
to encourage it. I am opposed to extremely high rates, because they produce little or no revenue, because they are bad for
the country, and, finally, because they are wrong. We can not finance the country, we can not improve social conditions, through
any system of injustice, even if we attempt to inflict it upon the rich. Those who suffer the most harm will be the poor.
This country believes in prosperity. It is absurd to suppose that it is envious of those who are already prosperous. The wise
and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured
success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful. The verdict of the country
has been given on this question. That verdict stands. We shall do well to heed it.

These questions involve moral issues. We need not concern ourselves much about the rights of property if we will faithfully
observe the rights of persons. Under our institutions their rights are supreme. It is not property but the right to hold property,
both great and small, which our Constitution guarantees. All owners of property are charged with a service. These rights and
duties have been revealed, through the conscience of society, to have a divine sanction. The very stability of our society
rests upon production and conservation. For individuals or for governments to waste and squander their resources is to deny
these rights and disregard these obligations. The result of economic dissipation to a nation is always moral decay.

These policies of better international understandings, greater economy, and lower taxes have contributed largely to peaceful
and prosperous industrial relations. Under the helpful influences of restrictive immigration and a protective tariff, employment
is plentiful, the rate of pay is high, and wage earners are in a state of contentment seldom before seen. Our transportation
systems have been gradually recovering and have been able to meet all the requirements of the service. Agriculture has been
very slow in reviving, but the price of cereals at last indicates that the day of its deliverance is at hand.

We are not without our problems, but our most important problem is not to secure new advantages but to maintain those which
we already possess. Our system of government made up of three separate and independent departments, our divided sovereignty
composed of Nation and State, the matchless wisdom that is enshrined in our Constitution, all these need constant effort and
tireless vigilance for their protection and support.

In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience to law. Under a despotism the law may be imposed upon the subject.
He has no voice in its making, no influence in its administration, it does not represent him. Under a free government the
citizen makes his own laws, chooses his own administrators, which do represent him. Those who want their rights respected
under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there
may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who
disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are
not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading
the way that leads back to the jungle.

The essence of a republic is representative government. Our Congress represents the people and the States. In all legislative
affairs it is the natural collaborator with the President. In spite of all the criticism which often falls to its lot, I do
not hesitate to say that there is no more independent and effective legislative body in the world. It is, and should be, jealous
of its prerogative. I welcome its cooperation, and expect to share with it not only the responsibility, but the credit, for
our common effort to secure beneficial legislation.

These are some of the principles which America represents. We have not by any means put them fully into practice, but we have
strongly signified our belief in them. The encouraging feature of our country is not that it has reached its destination,
but that it has overwhelmingly expressed its determination to proceed in the right direction. It is true that we could, with
profit, be less sectional and more national in our thought. It would be well if we could replace much that is only a false
and ignorant prejudice with a true and enlightened pride of race. But the last election showed that appeals to class and nationality
had little effect. We were all found loyal to a common citizenship. The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration. We can
not permit any inquisition either within or without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind
of America must be forever free.

It is in such contemplations, my fellow countrymen, which are not exhaustive but only representative, that I find ample warrant
for satisfaction and encouragement. We should not let the much that is to do obscure the much which has been done. The past
and present show faith and hope and courage fully justified. Here stands our country, an example of tranquillity at home,
a patron of tranquillity abroad. Here stands its Government, aware of its might but obedient to its conscience. Here it will
continue to stand, seeking peace and prosperity, solicitous for the welfare of the wage earner, promoting enterprise, developing
waterways and natural resources, attentive to the intuitive counsel of womanhood, encouraging education, desiring the advancement
of religion, supporting the cause of justice and honor among the nations. America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and
force. No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. The legions which she sends forth are armed,
not with the sword, but with the cross. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human,
but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

As Britain's situation in the war grew more desperate, her ability to pay for needed arms and material rapidly diminished. Following his election to a third
term in November 1940, President Roosevelt determined to find some means of underwriting an Allied victory over Germany without
huge intergovernment loans. In mid-December he hit upon the idea of Lend-Lease; the materials of war would be turned over
to Allied nations now, and would be paid for at the end of the war in goods and services. In a press conference on December
17, Roosevelt outlined in simple terms the underlying premises of the Lend-Lease program. Two weeks later, in an effort to
rally public opinion behind his program, Roosevelt delivered one of his most famous "Fireside Chats"--the "arsenal of democracy"
speech--on December 29, in which he called upon the American people to assume new responsibilities as guardians of the freedom
of the world. A portion of the December 17 press conference is reprinted here.

In the present world situation of course there is absolutely no doubt in the mind of a very overwhelming number of Americans
that the best immediate defense of the United States is the success of Great Britain in defending itself; and that, therefore,
quite aside from our historic and current interest in the survival of democracy in the world as a whole, it is equally important,
from a selfish point of view of American defense, that we should do everything to help the British Empire to defend itself.
. . .

It isn't merely a question of doing things the traditional way; there are lots of other ways of doing them. I am just talking
background, informally; I haven't prepared any of this--I go back to the idea that the one thing necessary for American national
defense is additional productive facilities; and the more we increase those facilities--factories, shipbuilding ways, munition
plants, et cetera, and so on--the stronger American national defense is.

Orders from Great Britain are therefore a tremendous asset to American national defense because they automatically create
additional facilities. I am talking selfishly, from the American point of view--nothing else. Therefore, from the selfish
point of view, that production must be encouraged by us. There are several ways of encouraging it--not just one, as the narrow-minded
fellow I have been talking about might assume, and has assumed. He has assumed that the only way was to repeal certain existing
statutes, like the Neutrality Act and the old Johnson Act and a few other things like that, and then to lend the money to
Great Britain to be spent over here--either lend it through private banking circles, as was done in the earlier days of the
previous war, or make it a loan from this government to the British government.

Well, that is one type of mind that can think only of that method somewhat banal.

There is another one which is also somewhat banal--we may come to it, I don't know--and that is a gift; in other words, for
us to pay for all these munitions, ships, plants, guns, et cetera, and make a gift of them to Great Britain. I am not at all
sure that that is a necessity, and I am not at all sure that Great Britain would care to have a gift from the taxpayers of
the United States. I doubt it very much.

Well, there are other possible ways, and those ways are being explored. All I can do is to speak in very general terms, because
we are in the middle of it. I have been at it now three or four weeks, exploring other methods of continuing the building
up of our productive facilities and continuing automatically the flow of munitions to Great Britain. I will just put it this
way, not as an exclusive alternative method but as one of several other possible methods that might be devised toward that
end.

It is possible--I will put it that way--for the United States to take over British orders and, because they are essentially
the same kind of munitions that we use ourselves, turn them into American orders. We have enough money to do it. And thereupon,
as to such portion of them as the military events of the future determine to be right and proper for us to allow to go to
the other side, either lease or sell the materials, subject to mortgage, to the people on the other side. That would be on
the general theory that it may still prove true that the best defense of Great Britain is the best defense of the United States,
and therefore that these materials would be more useful to the defense of the United States if they were used in Great Britain
than if they were kept in storage here.

Now, what I am trying to do is to eliminate the dollar sign. That is something brand new in the thoughts of practically everybody
in this room, I think--get rid of the silly, foolish old dollar sign.

Well, let me give you an illustration: Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose 400 or
500 feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now,
what do I do? I don't say to him before that operation, "Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for
it." What is the transaction that goes on? I don't want $15--I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. All right.
If it goes through the fire all right, intact, without any damage to it, he gives it back to me and thanks me very much for
the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up--holes in it--during the fire; we don't have to have too much formality about
it, but I say to him, "I was glad to lend you that hose; I see I can't use it any more, it's all smashed up." He says, "How
many feet of it were there?" I tell him, "There were 150 feet of it." He says, "All right, I will replace it." Now, if I get
a nice garden hose back, I am in pretty good shape.

In other words, if you lend certain munitions and get the munitions back at the end of the war, if they are intact--haven't
been hurt--you are all right; if they have been damaged or have deteriorated or have been lost completely, it seems to me
you come out pretty well if you have them replaced by the fellow to whom you have lent them.

I can't go into details; and there is no use asking legal questions about how you would do it, because that is the thing that
is now under study; but the thought is that we would take over not all, but a very large number of, future British orders;
and when they came off the line, whether they were planes or guns or something else, we would enter into some kind of arrangement
for their use by the British on the ground that it was the best thing for American defense, with the understanding that when
the show was over, we would get repaid sometime in kind, thereby leaving out the dollar mark in the form of a dollar debt
and substituting for it a gentleman's obligation to repay in kind. I think you all get it.

The prospect of independence meant more than fighting a war with Britain. It also entailed the formation of new governments
in America. In January of 1776, George Wythe, of Virginia, asked John Adams to draw up a plan that would enable the colonies
to make this transition. Adams responded with the following letter.

If I was equal to the task of forming a plan for the government of a colony, I should be flattered with your request, and
very happy to comply with it; because, as the divine science of politics is the science of social happiness, and the blessings
of society depend entirely on the constitutions of government, which are generally institutions that last for many generations,
there can be no employment more agreeable to a benevolent mind than a research after the best. . . .

We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative
politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will
agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government
which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest
degree, is the best.

All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well
as his dignity, consists in virtue. . . . If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue,
will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it
predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded
on it.

Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed, the former is but a part
of the latter and, consequently, has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.

The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people. The noblest principles and most
generous affections in our nature, then, have the fairest chance to support the noblest and most generous models of government.
. . . That, as a republic is the best of governments, so that particular arrangement of the powers of society, or, in other
words, that form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws, is the best
of republics.

Of republics there is an inexhaustible variety, because the possible combinations of the powers of society are capable of
innumerable variations.

As good government is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made? In a large society inhabiting an extensive country,
it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the
many to a few of the most wise and good. But by what rules shall you choose your representatives? Agree upon the number and qualifications of persons who shall have the benefit of choosing, or annex this privilege to the
inhabitants of a certain extent of ground.

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed, in constituting this representative assembly. It
should be in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it
may be the interest of this assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or, in other
words, equal interests among the people should have equal interests in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and
to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections. Such regulations, however, may be better made in times of greater tranquillity
than the present; and they will spring up themselves naturally when all the powers of government come to be in the hands of
the people's friends. At present, it will be safest to proceed in all established modes to which the people have been familiarized
by habit.

A representation of the people in one assembly being obtained, a question arises, whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy,
whose government is in one assembly. My reasons for this opinion are as follow:

1. A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subject to fits of humor, starts
of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments.
And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.

2. A single assembly is apt to be avaricious, and in time will not scruple to exempt itself from burdens which it will lay,
without compunction, on its constituents.

3. A single assembly is apt to grow ambitious, and after a time will not hesitate to vote itself perpetual. . . .

To avoid these dangers, let a distinct assembly be constituted as a mediator between the two extreme branches of the legislature,
that which represents the people, and that which is vested with the executive power. . . .

The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend
so much upon an upright and skilful administration of justice that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative
and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. . . .

A militia law requiring all men, or with very few exceptions besides cases of conscience, to be provided with arms and ammunition,
to be trained at certain seasons; and requiring counties, towns, or other small districts to be provided with public stocks
of ammunition and entrenching utensils, and with some settled plans for transporting provisions after the militia, when marched
to defend their country against sudden invasions; and requiring certain districts to be provided with fieldpieces, companies
of matrosses [gunner's mates], and perhaps some regiments of light-horse-[men], is always a wise institution, and, in the
present circumstances of our country, indispensable.

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful that, to a humane and generous mind,
no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. . . .

A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people and inspires them with a conscious dignity
becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be
general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government makes the common people brave and enterprising. That ambition
which is inspired by it makes them sober, industrious, and frugal. You will find among them some elegance, perhaps, but more
solidity; a little pleasure, but a great deal of business; some politeness, but more civility. If you compare such a country
with the regions of domination, whether monarchical or aristocratical, you will fancy yourself in Arcadia or Elysium.

If the colonies should assume governments separately, they should be left entirely to their own choice of the forms; and if a continental constitution should be formed, it should
be a congress containing a fair and adequate representation of the colonies, and its authority should sacredly be confined
to these cases; namely, war, trade, disputes between colony and colony, the post office, and the unappropriated lands of the
Crown, as they used to be called.

These colonies under such forms of government, and in such a union, would be unconquerable by all the monarchies of Europe.

You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to
live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government, more than of air, soil,
or climate, for themselves or their children! When, before the present epoch, had 3,000,000 people full power and a fair opportunity
to form and establish the wisest and happiest government that human wisdom can contrive? I hope you will avail yourself and
your country of that extensive learning and indefatigable industry which you possess to assist her in the formation of the
happiest governments and the best character of a great people.

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, with a Life of the Author, Charles Francis Adams, ed., 1850-1856, 10 vols.

Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion
of my fellow-citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased
to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those
anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire. A rising
nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged
in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye-when
I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed
to the issue, and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high
authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all
difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those associated
with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which
we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn
an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being
now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange
themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred
principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens,
unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and
even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance
under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic,
as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during
the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that
the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by
some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference
of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed
as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed,
that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would
the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm
on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve
itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every
man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own
personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted
with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative
government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded
to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth
and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions
of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and
their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them
inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence,
which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter-with
all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens-a
wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate
their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is
the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper
you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape
its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not
all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce,
and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their
rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies;
the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and
safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people-a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped
by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority,
the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the
supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the
honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as
its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion;
freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution
and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the
creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust;
and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road
which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen
the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man
to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence
you reposed in our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose preeminent services had entitled him to the first place
in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only
as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment.
When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your
indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn
what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the
past, and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate
that of others by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.

Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever
you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies
of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.

Washington's Farewell Address was never delivered by him. It appeared first by his own arrangement in a newspaper at Philadelphia, then the seat of the
national government. Designed in part to remove him from consideration for a third term as President of the United States,
the address as published was similar to one he had prepared at the end of his first term, in 1792, when he had contemplated
retiring from office. In July 1796, he sent a copy of this earlier address to Alexander Hamilton, requesting him to write
a new one. Hamilton, who until the year before had been secretary of the treasury and the chief architect of Washington's
administration, did as he was asked, but the result, again reworked by Washington, still reflects the ideas of the retiring
President. It was printed in the American Daily Advertiser, September 19, 1796.

Friends and Fellow Citizens:

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant,
and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that
important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice,
that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of
whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard
to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that, in withdrawing
the tender of service which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future
interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but act under . . . a full conviction that the step is
compatible with both.

The acceptance of and continuance hitherto in the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform
sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped
that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return
to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last
election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed
and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled
me to abandon the idea.

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible
with the sentiment of duty or propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the
present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust, were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of
this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the
government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority
of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to
diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement
is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services,
they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene,
patriotism does not forbid it. . . .

If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive
example in our annals, that, under circumstances in which the passions agitated in every direction were liable to mislead,
amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently
want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts
and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected.

Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to the grave as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that
Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your Union and brotherly affection may be perpetual;
that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every
department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices
of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them
the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension
of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and
to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation,
and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the
more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend who can possibly have no personal
motive to bias his counsels. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former
and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify
or confirm the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar
in the edifice of your real independence; the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of
your prosperity in every shape; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different
causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction
of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies
will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should
properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish
a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of
your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest
even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to
alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country
has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation
derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political
principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work
of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those
which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully
guarding and preserving the Union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the
productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing
industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce
expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and
while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward
to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted.

The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications
by land and water will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures
at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater
consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight,
influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest,
as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from
an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

While then every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined in the
united mass of means and efforts cannot fail to find greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from
external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and -- what is of inestimable value! -- they
must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring
countries not tied together by the same government, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce but which
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the
necessity of those overgrown military establishments which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty and which
are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your Union ought to be considered
as a main prop of your liberty and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind and exhibit the continuance of the
Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let
experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization
of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment.
It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to Union affecting all parts of our country,
while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism
of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have
been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations: Northern and Southern; Atlantic and Western; whence
designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients
of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You
cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They
tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen, in the negotiation by
the executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction
at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a
policy in the general government and in the Atlantic states unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi. They
have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them everything
they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, toward confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to
rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to
those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict between
the parts, can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances
in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of
a Constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union and for the efficacious management of
your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation
and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy,
and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims
of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of
government. But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people,
is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes
the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with
the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities,
are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial
and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful
and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public
administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and
wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the
course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert
the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterward the very engines which have
lifted them to unjust dominion.

Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you
steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority but also that you resist with care the spirit
of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of
the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.
In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character
of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of
the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion exposes to
perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management
of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect
security of liberty is indispensable.

Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is,
indeed, little else than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each
member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of
the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects
of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It
exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular
form, it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which
in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads
at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of
men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction,
more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins
of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common
and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage
and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.
It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the
channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to
keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true, and, in governments of a monarchical cast,
patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in
governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always
be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by
force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent
its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its
administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers
of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments
in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness
to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories,
and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient
and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them.
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong,
let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation;
for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are
destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use
can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In
vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these
firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to
cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.

Let it simply be asked -- Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation
desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition
that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds
of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with
more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon
attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the
structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly
as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare
for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only
by shunning occasions of expense but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars
may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of
these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate.

To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that toward
the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are
not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment inseparable from the selection of the proper
objects (which is always a choice of difficulties) ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct
of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public exigencies
may at any time dictate.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this
conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant
period, a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice
and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary
advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity
of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas!
is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations
and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should
be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its
interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight
causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill-will and resentment sometimes
impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national
propensity, and adopts, through passion, what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient
to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes
perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into
one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate
inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is
apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and
by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray
or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances
of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base
or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such
attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford
to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public
councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of
the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens, the jealousy of a free people
ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.
But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided instead
of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they
actuate to see danger only on one side and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots,
who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the
applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them
as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect
good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of
her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an
efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take
such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent
nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we
may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by our justice shall counsel.

Why forgo the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our
destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest,
humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. So far, I mean, as we are
now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements (I hold
the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy). I repeat it, therefore:
let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend
them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectably defensive posture, we may safely trust
to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy
should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural
course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with
powers so disposed, in order to give to trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government
to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but
temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly
keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion
of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the
condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.
There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong
and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from running
the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive
of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party-spirit, to warn
against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism, this hope will be a full
recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22nd of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned
by your approving voice and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually
governed me -- uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under
all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having
taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness. . .
.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With
me, a predominant motive has been to endeavour to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions,
and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking,
the command of its own fortune.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible
of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the
Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never
cease to view them with indulgence, and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service, with an upright
zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love toward it which is so natural to a man
who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectations
that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow
citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward,
as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

A "new" Eisenhower seemed to emerge during 1959 and 1960, when the President, at last in health, and acting without the advisers
-- Secretary of the Treasury George M. Humphrey, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and Presidential Assistant Sherman
Adams -- who had dominated the early years of his administration, began to use the powers of his office to implement his policies
and to check the rise of certain influential factions in the government. One group that particularly worried Eisenhower was
the alliance that he dubbed the "military-industrial complex." He warned on several occasions, most notably in his Farewell Address of January 17, 1961, that advances in technology combined
with the growing defense needs of the country had created an opportunity for the military establishment and the armaments
industry to exert undue and improper influence on the formation and conduct of national policy. The warning was especially
striking coming from Eisenhower, product as he was of the military and good friend, as it had been assumed, of "Big Business."
Eisenhower's Farewell Address is reprinted here.

My Fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as,
in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leavetaking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President and all who will labor with him Godspeed. I pray that the coming years
will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution
of which will better shape the future of the nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis, when long ago a member of the Senate appointed
me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate postwar period and, finally, to the mutually
interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well to serve the national
good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So my official
relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling on my part of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these
involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive
nation in the world. Understandably proud of this preeminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend
not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength but on how we use our power in the interests
of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America's adventure in free government our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human
achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy
of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice
would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole
attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose,
and insidious in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully there
is called for not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis but rather those which enable us to carry forward
steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus
shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation
to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase
in newer elements of our defense, development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture, a dramatic expansion
in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as
the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national
programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped-for advantage, balance between
the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties
imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good
judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths
and have responded to them well in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I
mention two only.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so
that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting
men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense;
we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, 3.5 million men and women
are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all
United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,
resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery
of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for, the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture has been the technological revolution
during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly.
A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of the federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and
testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery,
has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract
becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic
computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is
ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we
must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological
elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the
principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and
our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious
resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom
of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid
becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a
confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected
as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned
for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences,
not with arms but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down
my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and
the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so
slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But so much remains
to be done. As a private citizen I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

So, in this, my last good night to you as your President, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public
service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will
find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with
justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the nation's
great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied
opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that
those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others
will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth; and that,
in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect
and love.

President Hoover attributed the Depression to forces that bore on the United States from without, not to weaknesses in the
American system itself. He had originally intended to conduct a limited campaign for reelection; but as Roosevelt's intentions to alter the economic system became increasingly apparent, he was stirred to political battle. Hoover was constantly
on the defensive during the campaign, celebrating the virtues of individualism and voluntary cooperation while charging that
Roosevelt's promised New Deal was based on "the same philosophy of government which has poisoned all Europe." Hoover's speech
at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 31, 1932, is reprinted here in part. Like all of his speeches, it was
written by Hoover himself.

This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is more than a contest between two parties. It is a contest between
two philosophies of government.

We are told by the opposition that we must have a change, that we must have a new deal. It is not the change that comes from
normal development of national life to which I object but the proposal to alter the whole foundations of our national life
which have been builded through generations of testing and struggle, and of the principles upon which we have builded the
nation. The expressions our opponents use must refer to important changes in our economic and social system and our system
of government, otherwise they are nothing but vacuous words. And I realize that in this time of distress many of our people
are asking whether our social and economic system is incapable of that great primary function of providing security and comfort
of life to all of the firesides of our 25 million homes in America, whether our social system provides for the fundamental
development and progress of our people, whether our form of government is capable of originating and sustaining that security
and progress.

This question is the basis upon which our opponents are appealing to the people in their fears and distress. They are proposing
changes and so-called new deals which would destroy the very foundations of our American system.

Our people should consider the primary facts before they come to the judgment--not merely through political agitation, the
glitter of promise, and the discouragement of temporary hardships--whether they will support changes which radically affect
the whole system which has been builded up by 150 years of the toil of our fathers. They should not approach the question
in the despair with which our opponents would clothe it.

Our economic system has received abnormal shocks during the past three years, which temporarily dislocated its normal functioning.
These shocks have in a large sense come from without our borders, but I say to you that our system of government has enabled
us to take such strong action as to prevent the disaster which would otherwise have come to our nation. It has enabled us
further to develop measures and programs which are now demonstrating their ability to bring about restoration and progress.

We must go deeper than platitudes and emotional appeals of the public platform in the campaign if we will penetrate to the
full significance of the changes which our opponents are attempting to float upon the wave of distress and discontent from
the difficulties we are passing through. We can find what our opponents would do after searching the record of their appeals
to discontent, group and sectional interest. We must search for them in the legislative acts which they sponsored and passed
in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in the last session of Congress. We must look into measures for which
they voted and which were defeated. We must inquire whether or not the presidential and vice-presidential candidates have
disavowed these acts. If they have not, we must conclude that they form a portion and are a substantial indication of the
profound changes proposed.

And we must look still further than this as to what revolutionary changes have been proposed by the candidates themselves.

We must look into the type of leaders who are campaigning for the Democratic ticket, whose philosophies have been well known
all their lives, whose demands for a change in the American system are frank and forceful. I can respect the sincerity of
these men in their desire to change our form of government and our social and economic system, though I shall do my best tonight
to prove they are wrong. I refer particularly to Senator Norris, Senator La Follette, Senator Cutting, Senator Huey Long,
Senator Wheeler, William R. Hearst, and other exponents of a social philosophy different from the traditional American one.
Unless these men feel assurance of support to their ideas, they certainly would not be supporting these candidates and the
Democratic Party. The seal of these men indicates that they have sure confidence that they will have voice in the administration
of our government.

I may say at once that the changes proposed from all these Democratic principals and allies are of the most profound and penetrating
character. If they are brought about, this will not be the America which we have known in the past.

Let us pause for a moment and examine the American system of government, of social and economic life, which it is now proposed
that we should alter. Our system is the product of our race and of our experience in building a nation to heights unparalleled
in the whole history of the world. It is a system peculiar to the American people. It differs essentially from all others
in the world. It is an American system.

It is founded on the conception that only through ordered liberty, through freedom to the individual, and equal opportunity
to the individual will his initiative and enterprise be summoned to spur the march of progress.

It is by the maintenance of equality of opportunity and therefore of a society absolutely fluid in freedom of the movement
of its human particles that our individualism departs from the individualism of Europe. We resent class distinction because
there can be no rise for the individual through the frozen strata of classes, and no stratification of classes can take place
in a mass livened by the free rise of its particles. Thus in our ideals the able and ambitious are able to rise constantly
from the bottom to leadership in the community.

This freedom of the individual creates of itself the necessity and the cheerful willingness of men to act cooperatively in
a thousand ways and for every purpose as occasion arises; and it permits such voluntary cooperations to be dissolved as soon
as they have served their purpose, to be replaced by new voluntary associations for new purposes.

There has thus grown within us, to gigantic importance, a new conception. That is, this voluntary cooperation within the community.
Cooperation to perfect the social organization; cooperation for the care of those in distress; cooperation for the advancement
of knowledge, of scientific research, of education; for cooperative action in the advancement of many phases of economic life.
This is self-government by the people outside of government; it is the most powerful development of individual freedom and
equal opportunity that has taken place in the century and a half since our fundamental institutions were founded.

It is in the further development of this cooperation and a sense of its responsibility that we should find solution for many
of our complex problems, and not by the extension of government into our economic and social life. The greatest function of
government is to build up that cooperation, and its most resolute action should be to deny the extension of bureaucracy. We
have developed great agencies of cooperation by the assistance of the government which promote and protect the interests of
individuals and the smaller units of business. The Federal Reserve System, in its strengthening and support of the smaller
banks; the Farm Board, in its strengthening and support of the farm cooperatives; the Home Loan Banks, in the mobilizing of
building and loan associations and savings banks; the Federal Land Banks, in giving independence and strength to land mortgage
associations; the great mobilization of relief to distress, the mobilization of business and industry in measures of recovery,
and a score of other activities are not socialism--they are the essence of protection to the development of free men.

The primary conception of this whole American system is not the regimentation of men but the cooperation of free men. It is
founded upon the conception of responsibility of the individual to the community, of the responsibility of local government
to the state, of the state to the national government.

It is founded on a peculiar conception of self-government designed to maintain this equal opportunity to the individual, and
through decentralization it brings about and maintains these responsibilities. The centralization of government will undermine
responsibilities and will destroy the system.

Our government differs from all previous conceptions, not only in this decentralization but also in the separation of functions
between the legislative, executive, and judicial arms of government, in which the independence of the judicial arm is the
keystone of the whole structure.

It is founded on a conception that in times of emergency, when forces are running beyond control of individuals or other cooperative
action, beyond the control of local communities and of states, then the great reserve powers of the federal government shall
be brought into action to protect the community. But when these forces have ceased, there must be a return of state, local,
and individual responsibility.

The implacable march of scientific discovery with its train of new inventions presents every year new problems to government
and new problems to the social order. Questions often arise whether, in the face of the growth of these new and gigantic tools,
democracy can remain master in its own house, can preserve the fundamentals of our American system. I contend that it can;
and I contend that this American system of ours has demonstrated its validity and superiority over any other system yet invented
by human mind.

It has demonstrated it in the face of the greatest test of our history--that is the emergency which we have faced in the past
three years.

When the political and economic weakness of many nations of Europe, the result of the World War and its aftermath, finally
culminated in collapse of their institutions, the delicate adjustment of our economic and social life received a shock unparalleled
in our history. No one knows that better than you of New York. No one knows its causes better than you. That the crisis was
so great that many of the leading banks sought directly or indirectly to convert their assets into gold or its equivalent
with the result that they practically ceased to function as credit institutions; that many of our citizens sought flight for
their capital to other countries; that many of them attempted to hoard gold in large amounts. These were but indications of
the flight of confidence and of the belief that our government could not overcome these forces.

Yet these forces were overcome--perhaps by narrow margins--and this action demonstrates what the courage of a nation can accomplish
under the resolute leadership in the Republican Party. And I say the Republican Party, because our opponents, before and during
the crisis, proposed no constructive program; though some of their members patriotically supported ours. Later on the Democratic
House of Representatives did develop the real thought and ideas of the Democratic Party, but it was so destructive that it
had to be defeated, for it would have destroyed, not healed.

In spite of all these obstructions, we did succeed. Our form of government did prove itself equal to the task. We saved this
nation from a quarter of a century of chaos and degeneration, and we preserved the savings, the insurance policies, gave a
fighting chance to men to hold their homes. We saved the integrity of our government and the honesty of the American dollar.
And we installed measures which today are bringing back recovery. Employment, agriculture, business--all of these show the
steady, if slow, healing of our enormous wound.

I therefore contend that the problem of today is to continue these measures and policies to restore this American system to
its normal functioning, to repair the wounds it has received, to correct the weaknesses and evils which would defeat that
system. To enter upon a series of deep changes, to embark upon this inchoate new deal which has been propounded in this campaign,
would be to undermine and destroy our American system.

Source: The State Papers and Other Public Writings of Herbert Hoover, vol. 2, William S. Myers, ed., 1934, pp. 408-413.

The address by ex-President Hoover, from which the following selection is taken, was delivered to the Republican National
Convention in Cleveland on June 10, 1936. Although Hoover was still the dominant figure in the Party -- as the wild and prolonged
demonstration touched off by his appearance attested -- the Republicans nominated the only Republican governor to be reelected
in 1934, Alfred M. Landon of Kansas. Landon referred to himself as a "constitutional liberal," but Hoover succeeded in blunting Landon's liberal edge
by injecting much of his own philosophy into the subsequent election campaign. Uncompromising opponents of the New Deal such
as Hoover constantly compared the rise of Roosevelt in America to the rise of dictatorships abroad.

In this room rests the greatest responsibility that has come to a body of Americans in three generations. In the lesser sense
this is a convention of a great political party. But in the larger sense it is a convention of Americans to determine the
fate of those ideals for which this nation was founded. That far transcends all partisanship.

There are elemental currents which make or break the fate of nations. There is a moral purpose in the universe. Those forces
which affect the vitality and the soul of a people will control their destinies. The sum of years of public service in these
currents is the overwhelming conviction of their transcendent importance over the more transitory, even though difficult,
issues of national life.

I have given about four years to research into the New Deal, trying to determine what its ultimate objectives were, what sort
of a system it is imposing on this country.

To some people it appears to be a strange interlude in American history in that it has no philosophy, that it is sheer opportunism,
that it is a muddle of a spoils system, of emotional economics, of reckless adventure, of unctuous claims to a monopoly of
human sympathy, of greed for power, of a desire for popular acclaim and an aspiration to make the front pages of the newspapers.
That is the most charitable view.

To other people it appears to be a cold-blooded attempt by starry-eyed boys to infect the American people by a mixture of
European ideas, flavored with our native predilection to get something for nothing.

You can choose either one you like best. But the first is the road of chaos which leads to the second. Both of these roads
lead over the same grim precipice that is the crippling and possibly the destruction of the freedom of men. Which of these
interpretations is accurate is even disputed by alumni of the New Deal who have graduated for conscience's sake or have graduated
by request.

In central Europe the march of Socialist or Fascist dictatorships and their destruction of liberty did not set out with guns
and armies. Dictators began their ascent to the seats of power through the elections provided by liberal institutions. Their
weapons were promise and hate. They offered the mirage of Utopia to those in distress. They flung the poison of class hatred.
They may not have maimed the bodies of men, but they maimed their souls.

The 1932 campaign was a pretty good imitation of this first stage of European tactics. You may recall the promises of the
abundant life, the propaganda of hate.

Once seated in office, the first demand of these European despotisms was for power and "action." Legislatures were told they
"must" delegate their authorities. Their free debate was suppressed. The powers demanded are always the same pattern. They
all adopt planned economy. They regimented industry and agriculture. They put the government into business. They engaged in
gigantic government expenditures. They created vast organizations of spoils henchmen and subsidized dependents. They corrupted
currency and credit. They drugged the thinking of the people with propaganda at the people's expense.

If there are any items in this stage in the march of European collectivism that the New Deal has not imitated it must have
been an oversight.

But at this point this parallel with Europe halts -- at least for the present. The American people should thank Almighty God
for the Constitution and the Supreme Court. They should be grateful to a courageous press.

You might contemplate what would have happened if Mr. Roosevelt could have appointed enough Supreme Court justices in the
first year of his administration. Suppose these New Deal acts had remained upon the statute books. We would have been a regimented
people. Have you any assurance that he will not have the appointments if he is reelected? . . .

So much for the evidence that the New Deal is a definite attempt to replace the American system of freedom with some sort
of European planned existence. But let us assume that the explanation is simply hit-and-run opportunism, spoils system, and
muddle.

We can well take a moment to explore the prospects of American ideals of liberty and self-government under that philosophy.
We may take only seven short examples:

The Supreme Court has reversed some ten or twelve of the New Deal major enactments. Many of these acts were a violation of
the rights of men and of self-government. Despite the sworn duty of the Executive and Congress to defend these rights, they
have sought to take them into their own hands. That is an attack on the foundations of freedom.

More than this, the independence of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive are pillars at the door of liberty.
For three years the word "must" has invaded the independence of Congress. And the Congress has abandoned its responsibility
to check even the expenditures of money. They have turned open appropriations into personal power. These are destructions
of the very safeguards of free people.

We have seen these gigantic expenditures and this torrent of waste pile up a national debt which two generations cannot repay.
One time I told a Democratic Congress that "You cannot spend yourselves into prosperity." You recall that advice did not take
then. It hasn't taken yet.

Billions have been spent to prime the economic pump. It did employ a horde of paid officials upon the pump handle. We have
seen the frantic attempts to find new taxes on the rich. Yet three-quarters of the bill will be sent to the average man and
the poor. He and his wife and his grandchildren will be giving a quarter of all their working days to pay taxes. Freedom to
work for himself is changed into a slavery of work for the follies of government.

We have seen an explosive inflation of bank credits by this government borrowing. We have seen varied steps toward currency
inflation that have already enriched the speculator and deprived the poor. If this is to continue, the end result is the tears
and anguish of universal bankruptcy and distress. No democracy in history has survived the final stages of inflation.

We have seen the building up of a horde of political officials. We have seen the pressures upon the helpless and destitute
to trade political support for relief. Both are a pollution of the very fountains of liberty.

We have seen the most elemental violation of economic law and experience. The New Deal forgets it is solely by production
of more goods and more varieties of goods and services that we advance the standard of living and security of men. If we constantly
decrease costs and prices and keep up earnings, the production of plenty will be more and more widely distributed. These laws
may be restitched in new phrases but they are the very shoes of human progress.

We had so triumphed in this long climb of mankind toward plenty that we had reached Mount Pisgah, where we looked over the
promised land of abolished poverty. Then men began to quarrel over the division of the goods. The depression produced by war
destruction temporarily checked our march toward the promised land.

Then came the little prophets of the New Deal. They announce the striking solution that the way out is to produce less and
to increase prices so that people can buy less. They have kept on providing some new restriction or burden or fright down
to a week ago.

At least it has enabled the New Deal to take a few hundred thousand earnest party workers to the promised land. It takes the
rest of us for a ride into the wilderness of unemployment.

Can democracy stand the strain of Mother Hubbard economics for long? Will there be anything left in the economic cupboard
but a bone? . . .

The New Deal may be a revolutionary design to replace the American system with despotism. It may be the dream stuff of a false
liberalism. It may be the valor of muddle. Their relationship to each other, however, is exactly the sistership of the witches
who brewed the caldron of powerful trouble for Macbeth. Their product is the poisoning of Americanism.

The President has constantly reiterated that he will not retreat. For months, to be sure, there has been a strange quiet.
Just as the last campaign was fought on promises that have been broken, so apparently this campaign is to be slipped through
by evasion.

But the American people have the right to know now, while they still have power to act. What is going to be done after election
with these measures which the Constitution forbids and the people by their votes have never authorized? What do the New Dealers
propose to do with these unstable currencies, unbalanced budgets, debts and taxes? Fifty words would make it clear. Surely
the propaganda agencies which emit half a million words a day could find room for these 50. I noticed they recently spent
300 words on how to choose a hat. It is slightly more important to know the fate of a nation. . . .

The Republican Party must achieve true social betterment. But we must produce measures that will not work confusion and disappointment.
We must propose a real approach to social evils, not the prescription for them, by quacks, of poison in place of remedy.

We must achieve freedom in the economic field. We have grave problems in relation of government to agriculture and business.
Monopoly is only one of them. The Republican Party is against the greed for power of the wanton boys who waste the people's
savings. But it must be equally adamant against the greed for power and exploitation in the seekers of special privilege.
At one time I said: "We can no more have economic power without checks and balances than we can have political power without
checks and balances. Either one leads to tyranny."

The Republican Party must be a party that accepts the challenge of each new day. The last word in human accomplishment has
not been spoken. The last step in human progress has not been made. We welcome change when it will produce a fairer, more
just, and satisfying civilization. But change which destroys the safeguards of free men and women are only apples of Sodom.

Great calamities have come to the whole world. These forces have reached into every calling and every cottage. They have brought
tragedy and suffering to millions of firesides. I have great sympathy for those who honestly reach for short cuts to the immensity
of our problems.

While design of the structure of betterment for the common man must be inspired by the human heart, it can only be achieved
by the intellect. It can only be builded by using the mold of justice, by laying brick upon brick from the materials of scientific
research; by the painstaking sifting of truth from the collection of fact and experience. Any other mold is distorted; any
other bricks are without straw; any other foundations are sand. That great structure of human progress can be built only by
free men and women.

The gravest task which confronts the party is to regenerate these freedoms.

There are principles which neither tricks of organization, nor the rigors of depression, nor the march of time, nor New Dealers,
nor Socialists, nor Fascists can change. There are some principles which came into the universe along with the shooting stars
of which worlds are made, and they have always been and ever will be true. Such are the laws of mathematics, the law of gravitation,
the existence of God and the ceaseless struggle of humankind to be free.

Throughout the centuries of history, man's vigil and his quest have been to be free. For this, the best and bravest of earth
have fought and died. To embody human liberty in workable government, America was born. Shall we keep that faith? Must we
condemn the unborn generations to fight again and to die for the right to be free?

There are some principles that cannot be compromised. Either we shall have a society based upon ordered liberty and the initiative
of the individual, or we shall have a planned society that means dictation, no matter what you call it or who does it. There
is no halfway ground. They cannot be mixed. Government must either release the powers of the individual for honest achievement
or the very forces it creates will drive it inexorably to lay its paralyzing hand more and more heavily upon individual effort.

Less than twenty years ago we accepted those ideals as the air we breathed. We fought a great war for their protection. We
took upon ourselves obligations of billions. We buried our sons in foreign soil. But in this score of years we have seen the
advance of collectivism and its inevitable tyranny in more than half the civilized world. In this thundering era of world
crisis distracted America stands confused and uncertain.

President Benjamin Harrison's policy of overseas expansion in search of foreign markets coincided with the desire of the white
businessmen of Hawaii for annexation by the United States. Annexation would provide stable government, but, more to the point, it would free the
islands of high American tariffs. With the support and encouragement of the administration, and with the use of a small number
of U.S. troops, the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown early in 1893 and a provisional government established. Harrison recognized
the new regime and sent a treaty of annexation to the Senate for ratification. But his term of office was nearly over, and
Grover Cleveland, who was to be president in three weeks, held up ratification until he could study the circumstances that
had led to the treaty. When he learned of them, he withdrew the treaty from deliberation. The selections printed below are
from Harrison's message transmitting the treaty to the Senate on February 15, 1893, and Cleveland's message of the following
December 18 withdrawing it from consideration.

Benjamin Harrison

For Annexation

I transmit herewith, with a view to its ratification, a treaty of annexation concluded on the 14th day of February, 1893,
between John W. Foster, secretary of state, who was duly empowered to act in that behalf on the part of the United States,
and Lorin A. Thurston, W. R. Castle, W. C. Wilder, C. L. Carter, and Joseph Marsden, the commissioners on the part of the
government of the Hawaiian Islands. The provisional treaty, it will be observed, does not attempt to deal in detail with the
questions that grow out of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. The commissioners representing the
Hawaiian government have consented to leave to the future and to the just and benevolent purposes of the United States the
adjustment of all such questions.

I do not deem it necessary to discuss at any length the conditions which have resulted in this decisive action. It has been
the policy of the administration not only to respect but to encourage the continuance of an independent government in the
Hawaiian Islands so long as it afforded suitable guarantees for the protection of life and property and maintained a stability
and strength that gave adequate security against the domination of any other power. The moral support of this government has
continually manifested itself in the most friendly diplomatic relations and in many acts of courtesy to the Hawaiian rulers.

The overthrow of the monarchy was not in any way promoted by this government, but had its origin in what seems to have been
a reactionary and revolutionary policy on the part of Queen Liliuokalani, which put in serious peril not only the large and
preponderating interests of the United States in the islands but all foreign interests, and, indeed, the decent administration
of civil affairs and the peace of the islands. It is quite evident that the monarchy had become effete and the queen's government
so weak and inadequate as to be the prey of designing and unscrupulous persons. The restoration of Queen Liliuokalani to her
throne is undesirable, if not impossible, and unless actively supported by the United States would be accompanied by serious
disaster and the disorganization of all business interests. The influence and interest of the United States in the islands
must be increased and not diminished.

Only two courses are now open--one the establishment of a protectorate by the United States, and the other annexation, full
and complete. I think the latter course, which has been adopted in the treaty, will be highly promotive of the best interests
of the Hawaiian people and is the only one that will adequately secure the interests of the United States. These interests
are not wholly selfish. It is essential that none of the other great powers shall secure these islands. Such a possession
would not consist with our safety and with the peace of the world. This view of the situation is so apparent and conclusive
that no protest has been heard from any government against proceedings looking to annexation. Every foreign representative
at Honolulu promptly acknowledged the Provisional Government, and I think there is a general concurrence in the opinion that
the deposed queen ought not to be restored.

Grover Cleveland

Against Annexation

When the present administration entered upon its duties, the Senate had under consideration a treaty providing for the annexation
of the Hawaiian Islands to the territory of the United States. Surely under our Constitution and laws the enlargement of our
limits is a manifestation of the highest attribute of sovereignty, and if entered upon as an executive act, all things relating
to the transaction should be clear and free from suspicion. Additional importance attached to this particular treaty of annexation
because it contemplated a departure from unbroken American tradition in providing for the addition to our territory of islands
of the sea more than 2,000 miles removed from our nearest coast....I conceived it to be my duty, therefore, to withdraw the
treaty from the Senate for examination, and meanwhile to cause an accurate, full, and impartial investigation to be made of
the facts attending the subversion of the constitutional government of Hawaii and the installment in its place of the Provisional
Government....

As I apprehend the situation, we are brought face to face with the following conditions:

The lawful government of Hawaii was overthrown without the drawing of a sword or the firing of a shot by a process every step
of which, it may safely be asserted, is directly traceable to and dependent for its success upon the agency of the United
States acting through its diplomatic and naval representatives.

But for the notorious predilections of the United States minister for annexation, the Committee of Safety, which should be
called the Committee of Annexation, would never have existed.But for the landing of the United States forces upon false pretexts
respecting the danger to life and property, the committee would never have exposed themselves to the pains and penalties of
treason by undertaking the subversion of the queen's government.

But for the presence of the United States forces in the immediate vicinity and in position to afford all needed protection
and support, the committee would not have proclaimed the Provisional Government from the steps of the government building.

And, finally, but for the lawless occupation of Honolulu under false pretexts by the United States forces, and but for Minister
Stevens' recognition of the Provisional Government when the United States forces were its sole support and constituted its
only military strength, the queen and her government would never have yielded to the Provisional Government, even for a time
and for the sole purpose of submitting her case to the enlightened justice of the United States.

Believing, therefore, that the United States could not, under the circumstances disclosed, annex the islands without justly
incurring the imputation of acquiring them by unjustifiable methods, I shall not again submit the treaty of annexation to
the Senate for its consideration, and in the instructions to Minister Willis, a copy of which accompanies this message, I
have directed him to so inform the Provisional Government.

But in the present instance our duty does not, in my opinion, end with refusing to consummate this questionable transaction.
It has been the boast of our government that it seeks to do justice in all things without regard to the strength or weakness
of those with whom it deals. I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as
international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one, and that even by indirection
a strong power may with impunity despoil a weak one of its territory.

By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority
of Congress, the government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus
been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor
to repair. The Provisional Government has not assumed a republican or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive
council or oligarchy, set up without the assent of the people. It has not sought to find a permanent basis of popular support
and has given no evidence of an intention to do so. Indeed, the representatives of that government assert that the people
of Hawaii are unfit for popular government and frankly avow that they can be best ruled by arbitrary or despotic power.

The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens
or subjects of a civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. The considerations that international
law is without a court for its enforcement and that obedience to its commands practically depends upon good faith instead
of upon the mandate of a superior tribunal only give additional sanction to the law itself and brand any deliberate infraction
of it not merely as a wrong but as a disgrace. A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience
more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United
States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied
to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

On that ground the United States cannot properly be put in the position of countenancing a wrong after its commission any
more than in that of consenting to it in advance. On that ground it cannot allow itself to refuse to redress an injury inflicted
through an abuse of power by officers clothed with its authority and wearing its uniform; and on the same ground, if a feeble
but friendly state is in danger of being robbed of its independence and its sovereignty by a misuse of the name and power
of the United States, the United States cannot fail to vindicate its honor and its sense of justice by an earnest effort to
make all possible reparation.

These principles apply to the present case with irresistible force when the special conditions of the queen's surrender of
her sovereignty are recalled. She surrendered, not to the Provisional Government but to the United States. She surrendered,
not absolutely and permanently but temporarily and conditionally until such time as the facts could be considered by the United
States. Furthermore, the Provisional Government acquiesced in her surrender in that manner and on those terms, not only by
tacit consent but through the positive acts of some members of the government who urged her peaceable submission, not merely
to avoid bloodshed but because she could place implicit reliance upon the justice of the United States and that the whole
subject would be finally considered at Washington.

Source: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897, James D. Richardson, ed., Washington, 1896-1899, Vol. IX, pp. 348-349, 460-472.

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of
the powers and duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is lacking in a proper sense of the obligation
which the oath imposes.

The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of the main policies of the new administration, so far as
they can be anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor, and, as such, to
hold up his hands in the reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of
the party platform upon which I was elected to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms
a most important feature of my administration. They were directed to the suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power
of the great combinations of capital invested in railroads and in industrial enterprises carrying on interstate commerce.
The steps which my predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation have accomplished much, have caused a
general halt in the vicious policies which created popular alarm, and have brought about in the business affected a much higher
regard for existing law.

To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same time freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper
and progressive business methods, further legislative and executive action are needed. Relief of the railroads from certain
restrictions of the antitrust law have been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me. On the other hand, the administration
is pledged to legislation looking to a proper federal supervision and restriction to prevent excessive issues of bonds and
stock by companies owning and operating interstate commerce railroads.

Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and
Labor, and of the Interstate Commerce Commission, looking to effective cooperation of these agencies, is needed to secure
a more rapid and certain enforcement of the laws affecting interstate railroads and industrial combinations.

I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of the incoming Congress, in December next, definite suggestions
in respect to the needed amendments to the antitrust and the interstate commerce law and the changes required in the executive
departments concerned in their enforcement.

It is believed that with the changes to be recommended American business can be assured of that measure of stability and certainty
in respect to those things that may be done and those that are prohibited which is essential to the life and growth of all
business. Such a plan must include the right of the people to avail themselves of those methods of combining capital and effort
deemed necessary to reach the highest degree of economic efficiency, at the same time differentiating between combinations
based upon legitimate economic reasons and those formed with the intent of creating monopolies and artificially controlling
prices.

The work of formulating into practical shape such changes is creative word of the highest order, and requires all the deliberation
possible in the interval. I believe that the amendments to be proposed are just as necessary in the protection of legitimate
business as in the clinching of the reforms which properly bear the name of my predecessor.

A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff. In accordance with the promises of the platform upon which
I was elected, I shall call Congress into extra session to meet on the 15th day of March, in order that consideration may
be at once given to a bill revising the Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and adjust the duties in such
a manner as to afford to labor and to all industries in this country, whether of the farm, mine, or factory, protection by
tariff equal to the difference between the cost of production abroad and the cost of production here, and have a provision
which shall put into force, upon executive determination of certain facts, a higher or maximum tariff against those countries
whose trade policy toward us equitably requires such discrimination. It is thought that there has been such a change in conditions
since the enactment of the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly protective principle, that the measure of the tariff above
stated will permit the reduction of rates in certain schedules and will require the advancement of few, if any.

The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way as to lead the business community to count upon it necessarily
halts all those branches of business directly affected; and as these are most important, it disturbs the whole business of
the country. It is imperatively necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in good faith in accordance with promises
made before the election by the party in power, and as promptly passed as due consideration will permit. It is not that the
tariff is more important in the long run than the perfecting of the reforms in respect to antitrust legislation and interstate
commerce regulation, but the need for action when the revision of the tariff has been determined upon is more immediate to
avoid embarrassment of business. To secure the needed speed in the passage of the tariff bill, it would seem wise to attempt
no other legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a suggestion only, for the course to be taken by Congress, upon
the call of the Executive, is wholly within its discretion.

In the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation and the securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the business
depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the revenue from customs and other sources has decreased to such an
extent that the expenditures for the current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by $100,000,000. It is imperative that such
a deficit shall not continue, and the framers of the tariff bill must, of course, have in mind the total revenues likely to
be produced by it and so arrange the duties as to secure an adequate income. Should it be impossible to do so by import duties,
new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and among these I recommend a graduated inheritance tax as correct in principle and
as certain and easy of collection.

The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures made to carry on the Government, to be as economical
as possible, and to make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and should be affirmed in every declaration
of government policy. This is especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But when the desire to win the
popular approval leads to the cutting off of expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to enable it
to accomplish its proper objects, the result is as much to be condemned as the waste of government funds in unnecessary expenditure.
The scope of a modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles
laid down by the old "laissez faire" school of political writers, and this widening has met popular approval.

In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on a large scale and the spread of information derived
from them for the improvement of general agriculture must go on.

The importance of supervising business of great railways and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution
of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of our resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction
of the Federal Government, including the most important work of saving and restoring our forests and the great improvement
of waterways, are all proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if properly performed. While some of
them, like the reclamation of arid lands, are made to pay for themselves, others are of such an indirect benefit that this
cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement, like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and
should be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will distribute its cost between the present and future generations
in accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the serious consideration of Congress whether the deepening
and control of the channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or of the Mississippi, when definite and practical
plans for the enterprise have been approved and determined upon, should not be provided for in the same way.

Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if our country is to maintain its proper place among
the nations of the world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its own trade interests in the maintenance
of traditional American policy against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and in the promotion of
peace and international morality. I refer to the cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable fortifications
upon the mainland of the United States and in its dependencies.

We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national
militia and under the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all
probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional
American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.

Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and the number of men to man them is insufficient. In
a few years however, the usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the mainland and in the dependencies,
will make them sufficient to resist all direct attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man them will be provided
as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our shores from Europe and Asia of course reduces the necessity for maintaining under
arms a great army, but it does not take away the requirement of mere prudence-that we should have an army sufficiently large
and so constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable force can quickly grow.

What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more emphatic way of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised.
It must be built and in existence when the emergency arises which calls for its use and operation. My distinguished predecessor
has in many speeches and messages set out with great force and striking language the necessity for maintaining a strong navy
commensurate with the coast line, the governmental resources, and the foreign trade of our Nation; and I wish to reiterate
all the reasons which he has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our
peace with other nations, and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights, the defense of our interests,
and the exercise of our influence in international matters.

Our international policy is always to promote peace. We shall enter into any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences
that it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall make every effort consistent with national honor
and the highest national interest to avoid a resort to arms. We favor every instrumentality, like that of the Hague Tribunal
and arbitration treaties made with a view to its use in all international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to
avoid war. But we should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to become foolish idealists if we did
not realize that, with all the nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a similar condition,
in order to prevent other nations from taking advantage of us and of our inability to defend our interests and assert our
rights with a strong hand.

In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the Orient growing out of the question of the open door and
other issues the United States can maintain her interests intact and can secure respect for her just demands. She will not
be able to do so, however, if it is understood that she never intends to back up her assertion of right and her defense of
her interest by anything but mere verbal protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons the expenses of the army and navy
and of coast defenses should always be considered as something which the Government must pay for, and they should not be cut
off through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain
them without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought
not to change a proper policy in this regard.

The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since has given it a position of influence among the nations that it
never had before, and should be constantly exerted to securing to its bona fide citizens, whether native or na